Connecticut will launch an electronic health record system for 35,000 of its Medicaid beneficiaries through a $5 million federal grant, the New Haven Register reports (Katz, New Haven Register, 1/29).
The grant is part of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, which granted $103 million to 27 states for new systems in order to improve Medicaid efficiency, economy and health care quality (iHealthBeat, 1/26).
The two-year pilot program for the state EHR system will be launched after the state Department of Social Services and eHealth Connecticut, a not-for-profit IT software developer, identifies which providers and hospitals may participate and what IT platforms they will share, according to the Connecticut Post (Brown, Connecticut Post, 1/27).
The EHR system will help prevent medical and prescription errors by identifying dangerous drug interactions and dosage and drug errors, according to the Register.
The HIPAA-compliant system will be interoperable among all authorized health care workers, but will not be contained in one central location. Certain health specialists only will have access to particular parts of a patient's EHR.
eHealth Connecticut is reviewing the legal implications of an EHR system, including the liabilities of a potential software glitch in the computer system, according to Michael Starkowski, commissioner of the Department of Social Services (New Haven Register, 1/29).