The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) has been working with 10 state health information exchanges (HIEs) to ensure they have established infrastructure for secure health information exchange on top of Direct messaging services. ONC is analyzing how prepared different states would be to protect patient data while making it available in the event of a hurricane or other wide-spread disaster.
According to an ONC press release, four Gulf states have partnered with six states in the East and Midwest to help patients and providers access critical health information when they are unable to visit their regular doctors or hospitals. Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Michigan, Wisconsin, and West Virginia today announced that they are partnering up and at minimum already have one operational interstate connection.
Though Direct, which allows for the secure exchange of health information over the Internet, already serves as a backbone for these exchanges as well as the majority of others across the U.S., this type of cross-state collaboration makes it easier to coordinate disaster preparedness and recovery efforts.
“Through disasters like Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Sandy and large tornadoes in Alabama and Joplin, Missouri, in 2011 and more recently in Moore, Oklahoma, we have learned the importance of protecting patients’ health records through electronic tools like health information exchanges,” said Farzad Mostashari, M.D., national coordinator for health IT. “Patients are better off when states and health information exchange organizations work together to ensure that health information can follow patients when they need it the most.”
Interstate secure HIE during disasters has long been an ONC focus. Its Southeast Regional Health IT and Health Information Exchange Collaboration (SERCH) group analyzed HIE barriers in 2012 and offered recommendations for developing HIE infrastructure so states are prepared for disasters.
“The SERCH effort will enable health care providers to contact a patient’s health plans and available health care providers for information about the patient’s medical history when it is most needed,” said Nicole Lurie, M.D., assistant secretary for Preparedness and Response. “But patients can help protect their own information and that of their children by saving it electronically.”