CommonWell to deliver on interoperability promise
The CommonWell Health Alliance anticipates delivery this summer of its promise to facilitate the exchange of patient data, originally announced more than a year ago.
CommonWell Health Alliance members, which include Cerner, McKesson, Allscripts, athenahealth and Greenway, have embedded code within their software that allows providers to find and share a patient’s medical information, regardless of the information's location.
In an article in Forbes, the organization says that more than 10,000 patients have given their consent for the sharing of their medical records. Patient identification will reside in a CommonWell database, according to the article.
In January, CommonWell picked twelve hospitals and clinics in Illinois, North Carolina and South Carolina to test the process. Tripp Jennings, MD, medical informatics officer at Palmetto Health in Columbia, S.C., says it took one month to “tweak” the software and educate clinicians on how to access registration information, according to Forbes. Palmetto has exchanged information on patient allergies, medications, immunizations, and medical problems.
Each vendor will decide whether to charge customers a fee, and how much.
Read the complete Forbes article.
Editor
Editor Beth earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and master’s in health communication. She has worked in hospital, academic and publishing settings over the past 20 years. Beth joined TriMed in 2005, as editor of CMIO and Clinical Innovation + Technology. When not covering all things related to health IT, she spends time with her husband and three children.