Medical records upgrade funded
$817,000 grant goes to hospitals
PINE BLUFF — A oneyear grant will help a group of south Arkansas hospitals and clinics to pay the costs of digitally exchanging and receiving patient-care records quickly, officials announced Tuesday.
At a news conference in Pine Bluff, Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield awarded $817,000 to the Arkansas Rural Health Partnership, a nonprofit organization of 14 hospital members and 108 hospital-owned or affiliated clinics in south Arkansas. The money will pay for the costs of upgrading equipment and covering annual dues for member hospitals and clinics to participate fully in the State Health Alliance for Records Exchange.
Under the system, clinical information of patients being transferred between health care facilities — care summaries, emergency room visits, vital signs, medications, allergies, immunization records, laboratory results, radiology report transcriptions and discharge summaries — can be transmitted and exchanged from one provider to another before patients arrive.
“We’re saving lives and all of this counts and helps, but we need the funds to help do the things that we do,” said Phil Gilmore, chief executive officer of Ashley County Medical Center and president of the Arkansas Rural Health Partnership. “We don’t have deep pockets, and so every dollar that we acquire really goes to
handling patient care.”
Right now, none of the member hospitals or clinics have been able to fully participate because of the costs. Several member hospitals are participating at a minimal level. Three member hospitals are not sharing data at all, according to a news release from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.
Stephanie Williams, chief of staff at the Arkansas Department of Health, which oversees the State Health Alliance for Records Exchange, said the statewide health information exchange represents a dramatic change in the way health care is provided across the state.
It’s so exciting to know,” Williams said, “that we have this electronic platform that we can access and share information in real time and that now we have the mechanism for patients’ information to move with them —not be siloed in one particular clinic or in one particular hospital, and it really has the capability to dramatically improve the care that’s provided.”
Williams said that health care professionals can use the system to access the most upto-date patient records, such as medication lists, patient histories and medical tests.
She added that the system is secure and adheres to federal and state privacy standards.
Curtis Barnett, president and chief executive officer of Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield, said that health care is a rapidly changing field, which he said creates challenges all across the health care spectrum, but particularly among rural providers.
“It’s up to all of us in health care to adapt and respond and whenever possible to lead that change,” he said. “We recognize that is especially challenging for our rural health-care providers when you look at declines in population and the declines in commerce that’s occurring in a lot of these communities.”
Barnett said to have a truly sustainable health care model, the focus would have to expand beyond simply treating people when they get sick.
“Helping people get and stay healthy,” he said, “that is absolutely critical moving forward, and I think everybody in this room recognizes that.”
To meet that goal, he said, requires that health care providers have access to complete patient information.
“You’ve got to know that somebody’s not seeing their primary care physician and getting their business taken care of,” Barnett said. “You’ve got to know if somebody’s a diabetic patient but they’re not having their exams or having their medication filled.”
He said the State Health Alliance for Records Exchange,
fully utilized, can provide the kind of information that health care providers would need to fully assess their patients’ needs based upon complete access to their health records.
“We view this grant,” Barnett said, “as an investment in keeping Arkansas healthier.”
Brian Thomas, chief executive officer of Jefferson Regional Medical Center in Pine Bluff, accepted a check for $144,878 as that hospital’s share of the $817,000 grant.
He said the funding goes toward payment of the fees to access the data exchange along with the implementation and interface costs, which, depending on the size, scope, and complexity of a given hospital’s systems, could range between $50,000 and $150,000.
“This is something that is beneficial to each one of our hospitals in a big way,” Thomas said. “It’s something that most of us are doing anyway, but it’s certainly appreciated that Blue Cross recognizes we need help.”