The Washington State Health Care Authority has launched three health record bank pilot projects, Health Data Management reports.
Health Record Bank Model
Health record banks are seen as an alternative to traditional health information exchange.
Under a health record bank model, the sponsoring organization collects patients' paper and electronic health records from physicians, hospitals, laboratories, pharmacies and other sources. Patients control access to their health data.
Health record banks typically are funded by charging an account fee to individuals or sponsors, such as a provider organization or health insurer.
Washington State Pilots
The Washington state pilot projects are designed to test the feasibility of health record banks. Juan Alaniz, project manager at the Washington State Health Care Authority, added that the pilot projects also will seek to determine the viability of financial models, such as charging fees, seeking employer sponsorships or other options.
The pilot projects will be hosted by:
- St. Joseph Hospital Foundation and the Critical Junctures Institute in Bellingham;
- Community Choice Healthcare Network in Cashmere; and
- Inland Northwest Health Services in Spokane.
The sponsoring organizations received $1.7 million in state grants for the pilot projects.
Participants will use personal health records and related tools from Google Health and Microsoft Health Vault to access their data, add information and share their health records (Goedert, Health Data Management, 3/17).
Alaniz said that other PHR products were considered but that the products did not offer the capability or user-friendly formats of Microsoft and Google applications.
Preliminary results from the pilot projects are expected by the end of June, according to Alaniz.
Washington state officials said the state could launch a statewide health information infrastructure based on health record banks by 2011 (Robinson, Government Health IT, 3/17).