Lehigh Valley Hospital And Health Network Will Pilot CapMed Portable Personal Health Record
Newtown, PA - Personal Health Records (PHRs) are being heralded as one of the growth areas in health information technology today. It is therefore no surprise that Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network (LVHHN), recognized for innovation and repeatedly ranked as one of the nation's top hospitals in the U.S. News & World Report guide to "America's Best Hospitals," has teamed up with CapMed, a division of Bio-Imaging Technologies, Inc. and one of the nation's leaders in PHR's, to provide CapMed's suite of Personal Health Record solutions to physicians and employees.
Slated to launch this month, the pilot program will involve two groups — employees from the LVHHN information services department as well as physicians and employees from the Lehigh Valley Physician Hospital Organization (LVPHO). Participants will choose one of two interchangeable CapMed PHR formats: a CD-ROM enabling users to maintain personal health information on their own desktop computers, or a portable Personal HealthKey using USB flash-drive technology which enables users to store their personal health information on the portable drive. Both formats offer full Internet connectivity for communicating and managing information online and serve as a tangible extension of CapMed's newly released online PHR. Employee participants will provide valuable feedback on features and functionality of the different formats.
The PHR will be customized and branded to LVHHN. Users will be able to track and manage personal health and wellness information, upload readings from home monitoring devices, link to individually-relevant patient education and receive important personal alerts and reminders. Patients will be able to provide immediate access to specifically selected emergency information either through auto-launch of the HealthKey, a printed wallet card, or access to their online PHR. LVPHO's involvement will help familiarize Lehigh Valley physicians with the technology and promote physician buy-in — critical elements to future widespread adoption of portable PHR technology.
Harry Lukens, LVHHN senior VP and chief information officer, states, "We are looking forward to partnering with CapMed on this project. We see it as a key step in improving the health of our community through the use of cutting-edge healthcare information technology. By providing our staff and patients portability of personal health information and secure patient/physician access to the complete longitudinal medical record, we are furthering our role as a leader in patient-centered care."
The PHR allows patients to easily and securely exchange data with their physicians and other care providers through CapMed's award-winning portable solutions, CapMed's report manager and the newly released "Invite My Doctor" feature, which provides physicians with access to patient-selected information through the online PHR. Phase One of the pilot is aimed at getting user feedback on format and feature preferences. Phase Two of the pilot will integrate the PHR with LVHHN's Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system and other available electronic data sources. This integration will enable import of the patient's complete medical history into the PHR. Both phases support secure communication of health information between patients and providers.
"For some time we have been interested in the potential benefits of employing health information technologies such as EMR's and PHR's as means to both improve quality and control healthcare costs," says John S. Jaffe, M.D., LVPHO's executive medical director. "It's ridiculous and even potentially dangerous to expect our patients to accurately remember important details about their medical care, such as medication dosages, health histories, etc. In an era where everything from bank accounts to online shopping is easily accomplished electronically, it's simply unacceptable not to apply the power of this technology to improve patient care.
"The use of portable PHRs is an excellent example of how this technology can improve care by greatly increasing accuracy and timeliness of medical records and facilitating patient-physician communication. We are very pleased to be partners in this innovative pilot project, and feel it will further the PHO's commitment to improving patient care by boosting quality and patient safety, reducing redundancy of testing and helping to contain costs."
Wendy Angst, General Manager of CapMed, stated, "This project is in line with CapMed's objectives to provide truly portable, consumer-centric PHRs. Providing patients access to their medical history from provider EMRs is a significant step towards empowering consumers to be partners in their own care and towards supporting the federal government's goal of a personal health record for every American by 2014. Because patients naturally will have a preference as to the format they use, we believe the flexibility of our product in terms of how health information is stored and managed will be pivotal to optimizing Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network's adoption of the technology. Lehigh Valley PHO's involvement will provide an important education and communication link with physicians."
SOURCE: LVHHN