How Critical Access Hospitals with Clinics are using the health information exchange to improve transitions of care
ORGANIZATION PROFILE:
Community Hospital established in 1904.
Organization Type: Critical Access Hospital, 25 beds.
Services: Obstetrics, home health, swing bed and hospice, and a broad range of outpatient services.
Service Base: 24/7 critical access care to patients of all ages in small rural community.
HEALTH INFORMATION EXCHANGE USE:
Streamlines care delivery across healthcare settings: Timely access to more complete patient data helps streamline care delivery and coordination across all settings, to include the emergency department, primary care physician's office, specialty clinics, and skilled nursing homes even when providers and facilities are using different EHRs.
Provides timely access to patient information: Using the health information exchange to track demographics, admissions, discharges, transfers, progress notes, diagnosis, lab results and medications delivers a more comprehensive picture of patients' health to members of the healthcare team.
Saves time and eliminates redundancy: By having access to a patient's more complete longitudinal record, redundant testing, x-rays, and imaging can be avoided. This helps to save time and money while positively impacting patient safety.
Supports medication reconciliation: Better adherence to prescription and treatment plans while avoiding overprescribing of medication or undetected potential adverse drug interactions.
Utilizing the health information exchange to improve transitions of care:
"Our facility is actively working to improve the transitional care process for patients, whether they are being transitioned from one level of care to another, transferred outside of our care, or coming into our care. Currently we focus on using KHIN to obtain information for swing bed and home health referrals so we can be better prepared for their admissions. This translates into improved quality of care for all patients by leveraging the HIE information in real time rather than awaiting a fax that may not be received in a timely manner." Rhonda Spellmeier
Clinical Analyst