Care Connecticity Consortium launches

[Greenbeard]

Interesting news on the electronic health record front today. Five of the more advanced health systems in the country are kicking off a joint health information exchange project that will start moving data between them later this year.

EHR 'Pioneers' Launch National Health Data Exchange Project:

On Wednesday, five medical groups that are considered "pioneers" in electronic health record use announced the launch of the Care Connectivity Consortium, a project to create a health information exchange network that will span several states and include millions of patients, the New York Times' "Bits" reports.

The groups launching the consortium are:

• Geisinger Health System;
• Group Health Cooperative;
• Intermountain Healthcare;
• Kaiser Permanente; and
• Mayo Clinic.

Details, Goals of Consortium

The leaders of the organizations have worked for the past six months to develop the consortium, which aims to efficiently collect and use EHRs to help physicians make more cost-effective diagnoses and share data (Lohr, "Bits," New York Times, 4/6).

One of the consortium's key goals is to demonstrate that secure, standards-based health data exchange among disparate health care providers is possible (Healthcare IT News, 4/6).

In addition, the consortium aims to show that increased access to medical data leads to more effective and safer care.

Kaiser Permanente CEO George Halvorson said the project is "totally focused on care," and "the challenge is to connect with other systems" to expand on many of the regional and local health information exchanges that already share data ("Bits," New York Times, 4/6).

Group Health Cooperative CEO Scott Armstrong added, "Our hope is that this partnership will grow and help accelerate the implementation of a national health information exchange, leading to better care for everyone" (Barr, Modern Healthcare, 4/6).

According to Halvorson, a benefit of the consortium for patients could be referrals between systems...