Two Ohio health systems have implemented electronic health records to reduce medical mistakes, improve patient care and avoid duplicative tests, the Toledo Blade reports. However, the health care rivals face the challenge of trying to work out how to make the systems interoperable.
Mercy Health Partners has established an EHR system at Mercy Children's Hospital and plans to spend $13.5 million by the end of 2006 to install the system at its other hospitals, St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center, St. Charles Mercy Hospital and St. Anne Mercy Hospital, the Blade reports. Mercy's system includes functions such as alerts for physicians and nurses when medications are wrongly prescribed, online lab results and access to patient treatment guidelines. Eventually, the system will allow physicians to record their notes in the electronic files.
However, the program cannot exchange information with nearby rival hospitals, the Blade reports. Also, while the system provides physicians with some access to inpatient EHRs from their offices, the records are not linked to outpatient medical information either because the data is on paper or because of the lack of interoperability of a private physician's office computer system, the Blade reports.
ProMedica Health System -- which owns Toledo Hospital, Flower Hospital and Bay Park Community Hospital -- also has invested million of dollars over the last 10 years developing an EHR system. Thomas Della Flora, ProMedica's vice president of information services, said that while standards are needed, it is more important to create a number for each patient, or a "national patient identifier." Such a system would accelerate the creation of a universal medical record by making it easier to keep track of the right person, the Blade reports. However, universal patient numbers currently are prohibited under federal law because of privacy concerns (Shockman, Toledo Blade, 2/13).