Consumers Union, a non-profit organization supporting consumer rights, has announced findings from a study published in HealthAffairs showing that a lack of clear guidelines — including behavioral norms for health information exchange participants, legal agreements and technical standards — is preventing quicker implementation of health information exchange systems.
Five different healthcare organizations in California were examined: Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, Nautilus Health Care Management Group in Newport Beach, Santa Clara Valley Hospital and Health System, Inland Empire Health Plan in San Bernardino and the Santa Cruz Health Information Exchange.
Key findings include:
• Exchange of electronic data among a patient's providers in different organizations was limited, which limited benefits to patients from the use of that data for their care.
• Of the five health care systems evaluated, only two had patient portals that enable patients to review some of their health record data.
• No organization had informed patients — particularly in their own language — about patients' personal health information rights, remedies, and responsibilities.
• Patients of the five health care organizations examined had little ability to monitor who was accessing their data.
In light of the Stage 2 Meaningful Use proposed rule, which focuses on increasing the accessibility of patient data to patients and encourages health information exchanges, the study recommends solutions such as launching campaigns to increase HIT literacy.
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Five different healthcare organizations in California were examined: Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, Nautilus Health Care Management Group in Newport Beach, Santa Clara Valley Hospital and Health System, Inland Empire Health Plan in San Bernardino and the Santa Cruz Health Information Exchange.
Key findings include:
• Exchange of electronic data among a patient's providers in different organizations was limited, which limited benefits to patients from the use of that data for their care.
• Of the five health care systems evaluated, only two had patient portals that enable patients to review some of their health record data.
• No organization had informed patients — particularly in their own language — about patients' personal health information rights, remedies, and responsibilities.
• Patients of the five health care organizations examined had little ability to monitor who was accessing their data.
In light of the Stage 2 Meaningful Use proposed rule, which focuses on increasing the accessibility of patient data to patients and encourages health information exchanges, the study recommends solutions such as launching campaigns to increase HIT literacy.
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