Locals turn to Indiana for help
creating online medical records
by Stephanie Esters | Kalamazoo
Gazette
Wednesday July 22, 2009, 6:06 PM
KALAMAZOO -- A group
trying to create a unified electronic
health-care database is turning to
service providers in Indiana to find one
that might help set up a database in
southwestern Michigan.
The regional online database would
allow patient health information to be
shared confidentially and more
efficiently among care providers. The
system -- the Southwest Michigan Health
Information Exchange -- would cover
health-care providers in Berrien,
Branch, Cass, Calhoun, Kalamazoo, St.
Joseph and Van Buren counties.
For the past five months, organizers
have been meeting with various
stakeholders -- doctors, hospitals,
health-care systems, employers, business
leaders and payers.
The leaders are now preparing to
approach some providers of health
exchange services in Indiana, which is
known for being progressive in health
information exchange offerings, said
Mindy L. Richards, president of
ChangeScape Inc., a Birmingham-based
health-care management advisory firm
that is organizing the effort to create
a health information exchange for
southwestern Michigan.
"They bring their lessons learned
into our group so we can save money and
time," Richards said. "They bring in the
thought leadership, the policy and
procedures for how to make this happen,
the best way to implement the business
model. And they have proper technology
to be able to gather the information in
the most efficient manner and be able to
exchange it in the most efficient
manner."
By the end of this month, ChangeScape
Inc. also expects to release the results
of surveys of about 80 percent of some
1,600 regional physicians on whether
they currently use electronic medical
records or if they are inclined to use
them and the exchange.
Contact Stephanie Esters at
se@kalamazoogazette.com or 388-8554.
