Research and Projects: AHRQ THQIT and SRD Portfolio

Vermont

Improving Rural Healthcare with Technology

Description:  Utilizes existing health IT standards to integrate the current stand-alone databases and information systems of a consortium of three rural healthcare systems as the basis for creating a comprehensive electronic health record for patient care.

Abstract:  DESCRIPTION (provided by the applicant): As the three members of a small, rural healthcare consortium, the applicants will utilize existing Healthcare Information Technology (HIT) standards to integrate their current incumbent, stand-alone databases and information systems to share patient information more effectively. They will then use this as a basis for creating a seamless, comprehensive Electronic Health Record, utilizing applications compliant with those standards, to make integration possible throughout their Consortium. From this project, they will discover how healthcare providers and staff in this Consortium may then use this seamless, longitudinal record system to improve overall patient care and efficiency, beta-testing its uses in the real world so they can then move on to implementation to scale the system up when this planning project is completed, to then be used by everyone working in the Consortium. The new Healthcare Information Technology system will allow real-time access to medical records and information, portability to numerous common devices and interfaces, reduction in overall costs, enhanced collaboration with healthcare organizations, government agencies, payers and other third parties, allow medication tracking and on-line ordering, allow electronic, real-time orders by physicians and other healthcare providers, give patients the ability to access protected health information on the Internet and allow providers to manage that access for security. It will also reduce information-related errors in treatment and overall care. Working with a carefully selected Consortium Research Team made up of a group of their Healthcare providers and Information Technology staff members, they will use accepted scientific practices in a comprehensive program of training, testing, evaluation and research to develop systems to reach these goals and to be scalable and repeatable elsewhere so that what they learn here will help other healthcare professionals in similar situations throughout the nation.

Year 1 Funding:  $200,000

Estimated Total Funding:  $200,000

Principal Investigator:  C. Frederick Lord

Applicant Institution:  Mt. Ascutney Hospital and Health Center

City/Town:  Windsor, Vermont

State:  Vermont

Grant Number:  P20 HS14896

Category:  Planning Grants (THQIT)

Thesaurus Terms:  automated medical record system, health care service planning, information dissemination, rural health, Internet, health care quality, patient safety /medical error, behavioral /social science research tag, clinical research, health services research tag, human data

Project Start Date:  Sep 30, 2004

Project End Date:  Sep 29, 2005