Dive Brief:
- The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology has been examining the role health information exchanges could play in disaster preparedness and response, according to a Health IT Buzz blog post.
- Two possible ways HIEs could help include using the HIE as an intermediary between emergency responders and hospitals, and the establishment of a disaster response medical history portal.
- However, both strategies involve working through differences in data standards, interoperability, workflow and policy issues such as how to handle HIPAA privacy regulations.
Dive Insight:
To find out whether such strategies are actually effective, the report recommends that the ONC set up pilots among multiple participants using a standard technology such as the Blue Button. The researchers also urged participants to involve EMS agencies in HIE efforts around disaster preparedness. One early effort exploring this approach involves 10 states — Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Michigan, Wisconsin and West Virginia — which have created an exchange for disasters that offers records for people displaced from their homes.