Four regional health information organizations in upstate New York have connected to link 110 hospitals in a 44-county region.
Providers in Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Albany will now be able to securely exchange the records of 5.4 million patients in the region. The project utilizes Direct Project protocol to allow the secure transmission of messages among the regions' providers.
"As Western New Yorkers may find themselves seeking medical care in other parts of the state, this collaboration among the upstate RHIOs provides the ability for their medical data to follow them to those regions and assures that it is securely available when it’s needed most – at the point of care," said Dan Porreca, executive director of HEALTHeLINK, one of the participating organizations, in the release.
"This connectivity across upstate New York illustrates how we are leading the country in transforming health IT, and in doing so moving one step closer in the development of the State Health Information Network of New York, which in the future will connect all RHIOs and healthcare organizations across the state and ultimately across the country," he said.
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