Friday, September 21, 2007

Discussing Healthcare data exchange on Deb Zona's "Healthcare in Crisis" show

I was recently on Deb Zona's Cable TV show, "Health Care in Crisis" with my partner, Dr Louis Maggio, where we discussed problems and issues regarding the management of clinical data and healthcare data exchange.

The purpose of our discussion was to describe in very simple terms, the problem that is faced by physicians, patients and care-givers in trying to keep track of a patient's clinical data including medication lists. We used this discussion to serve as a laymans introduction to the concept of a RHIO or HIE.
Clip1


Dr Maggio discusses Medication Reconciliation and how patients manage their own medication lists.
Clip 2



Some points discussed:
Clip 1:

  • Patient clinical data is spread out throughout the community, at the various hospitals, imaging centers, labs etc.
  • Patients in their healthcare, can undergo multiple care transitions during their illness. These transitions may include home to hospital, to nursing home/rehab, to home with VNA and finally back home under previous arrangemnt.
  • Challenge for the physician and the patient/care-givers, is keeping track of the data that is generated at each of these care settings. It is critical not to lose track of any data as care settings change.
  • It is importany to maintain a unified view of the patient regardless of the care setting.

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