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For patients, they are a boon. For caregivers, they supply enormous new powers to treat and manage disease. For payers and administrators, they offer huge efficiency opportunities.
Electronic health information systems, however, often remain beyond the reach of some of Colorado’s hospitals, clinics and physicians offices. Others are finally getting their systems online. A few are even working on a second generation.
And information problems persist even for the lucky ones. Regardless of how advanced a system may be, patients lose or change insurance. They get different jobs. They move. For many reasons, they abruptly appear on a caregiver’s doorstep without an easily accessible health past, and many of the benefits of having a single medical record are compromised. Time, money, and even quality of care are lost as prior records are laboriously requested, mailed, scanned and, as time allows, later entered into a new record.
What’s Getting Done
Several groups are forging ways to let different systems share information easily, and give patients the great relief of being able to move around our region without compromising their care. Come hear what they’re trying to do, and what’s getting in the way.
The scoop from... |
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