How real-time health data exchange can drive emergency care
Michigan Health Information Network has launched a pilot project that enables real-time health data exchange between emergency medical services and hospitals.
In a medical emergency where every second counts, real-time health data exchange becomes not just beneficial, but essential.
However, data siloes between emergency medical service (EMS) providers and hospitals have historically presented challenges for care coordination.
"Sometimes there are direct feeds between EMS systems and hospitals, but they are not something that the hospitals can typically ingest into their system and keep records of, at least not very easily," said Jaki Porter, chief operating officer of Michigan Health Information Network (MiHIN), Michigan's statewide health information exchange (HIE).
This lack of interoperability often means that EMS providers must make critical, life-saving care decisions without access to patient health information.
Further, hospitals often do not have information on incoming patients until the ambulance arrives at the emergency department (ED), leaving no time to prepare for patient care.
However, MiHIN is looking to change that through a new pilot.
Enhancing emergency handoffs for care coordination
The project supports bidirectional interoperability between EMS and hospitals using technology from health IT vendor Beyond Lucid Technologies. Reading Emergency Unit (REU) and Hillsdale Hospital are currently enrolled in the pilot program.
When an REU ambulance transports a patient to Hillsdale Hospital, EMS providers can access a subset of patient data within a MiHIN portal.
The data set includes information critical for emergency response, including patient allergies, medications and any known medical problems. Porter noted that MiHIN does not share patients' complete health history with the EMS unit to avoid information overload when time is of the essence.
Then, REU mobile medical units share the patient's electronic care record, including vital signs, with Hillsdale Hospital in real time.
Beyond Lucid converts the electronic care record into a Continuity of Care Document (CCD) and securely transmits it to MiHIN. Then, MiHIN routes the CCD to Hillsdale Hospital, giving ED providers a comprehensive view of the patient's condition before arrival.
"The goal is to better prepare hospitals to be able to instantly know what's happening with the patient and be ready to treat them," Porter said.
Improving EMS training through HIE
MiHIN is working on implementing the second phase of the pilot which will close the care loop between Hillsdale and REU to improve EMS training.
The HIE will create a real-time active care relationship between the patient and REU, allowing EMS providers to receive future discharge reports from Hillsdale Hospital. By creating this real-time active care relationship, EMS providers are informed of what happened to the patient, allowing them to see if their initial diagnoses were correct to inform future care delivery.
Additionally, closing the care loop between Hillsdale and REU also streamlines billing processes, Porter said.
Our goal is to better prepare providers so that they can more quickly and accurately treat the patient.
Jaki PorterChief operating officer, Michigan Health Information Network
"Billing insurance on the EMS side is very tedious, I would say," she pointed out. "Whatever we can do to help with that piece kind of entices them to participate too, because not only are they learning something, but it's also making a secondary process on their side easier."
Additionally, phase two of the pilot will focus on sharing the ambulatory CCD with providers who have an established relationship with the patient within the MiHIN network to ensure comprehensive patient care histories.
Future expansion
Porter said that MiHIN hopes to eventually roll out real-time EMS data exchange to the entire state. However, she emphasized that the HIE must first prove that enhanced interoperability between EMS and hospitals is beneficial for patient care.
"Our goal is to better prepare providers so that they can more quickly and accurately treat the patient," Porter said. "The last thing we want to do is create more noise for any type of medical provider to where they can't focus on the patient."
"If we start proving that this is helpful in preparing the team to treat the patient, we anticipate that we'll have a lot more engagement to start rolling this out," she said.
By closing the interoperability gap between EMS and hospitals, MiHIN's pilot project could help revolutionize emergency response for enhanced care coordination and better patient outcomes.
Hannah Nelson has been covering news related to health information technology and health data interoperability since 2020.
