Butler Health System (BHS) is set to implement GE Healthcare's bi-directional health information exchange (HIE) to enable the exchange of information including: continuity of care documents (CCDs); clinical summary documents; surgical and practice notes; lab, radiology and cardiology orders and results; and referrals, between BHS and its affiliated and independent physicians, as well as referral hospitals outside of the immediate community.
Butler’s HIE will provide data to GE Healthcare’s ambulatory electronic medical record (EMR) – Centricity EMR – as well as non-GE clinical software products.
GE will integrate HIE data with the existing systems, enabling physicians to view newly-available clinical patient information from various sources within their native EMR screens, thereby increasing physician adoption of the HIE by eliminating the need for new screens to learn.
The HIE’s referrals management capability from GE will enable doctors who adopt the Software-as-a-Service (SAAS) based EMR to electronically and automatically place referrals with physicians who currently use Centricity EMR or select non-GE products rather than rely on fax or mail.
With the initial HIE integration in place, BHS can automate access to information supporting the clinical care of its patients at other facilities.
GE Healthcare’s eHealth Solutions vice president and general manager Earl Jones said the HIE will allow BHS to create near-term cost efficiencies though tighter integration with the referring physicians and long-term advantages in terms of managing chronic diseases and monitoring public health.