6/30/2009

(Chart: The Community Health Care Collaborative coordinates Emergency Preparedness planning in Northeastern Minnesota. One of its roles is to prepare hospitals to deliver coordinated and effective care to victims of terrorism and other public health emergencies.)

The Community Health Information Collaborative, a Duluth-based nonprofit that serves an 18-county region in Northeastern and central Minnesota, has formed a partnership to offer a new service to area health providers allowing them to locate critical patient medical records quickly and efficiently.

Hospitals, nursing homes, physicians, public health and emergency response personnel in the 18 Minnesota counties will be asked to band together to create the regional electronic medical records system.

The collaborative with nearly 400 medical provider members in those 18-counties announced June 11 it is partnering with MEDNET and its Patient Lookup System to create the regional medical records system.

Cheryl Stephens, PhD, executive director of the Duluth collaborative, said the health information exchange is about consumer empowerment. “We’re looking forward to helping develop a network that is secure and effective and that improves the quality of care patients receive,” she said.

Historically, healthcare providers have depended upon a paper- or fax-based process to locate patient information. It’s a manual system that too often produces incomplete data at critical moments and increases chances for errors.

The proposed system will share information electronically among all providers in the collaborative safely and securely, Stephens said.

After the rollout to the initial 18 Minnesota counties served by the collaborative, physician access to the MEDNET Patient Lookup Service will expand with additional services such as electronic referral, insurance pre-authorization and public health reporting. The system will support connectivity to the national health backbone, called the Nationwide Health Information Network to support secure connectivity to other states and federal agencies.

“We want to make it easier for people every time they visit the doctor, a hospital or clinic. Most importantly, we are pleased to provide the necessary software to enable the critical security measures to protect patient privacy,” said John Fraser, MEDNET’s chief executive.

The collaborative leverages information technology to help member organizations save precious healthcare dollars, makes healthcare providers more efficient and provides the foundation for future innovation. The collaborative’s nearly 400 members include hospitals, clinics, long-term care facilities, tribal health organizations, higher education institutions and public health departments in 18 counties in northeast and north central Minnesota: Aitkin, Beltrami, Carlton, Cass, Chisago, Cook, Crow Wing, Isanti, Itasca, Kanabec, Koochiching, Lake, Mille Lacs, Morrison, Pine, St. Louis, Todd and Wadena.

The area covers nearly 30,000 square miles and is home to 650,000 residents.

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