Dive Brief:
- St. Louis-based SSM Health is the first healthcare organization to go live with Surescripts National Record Locator Service (NRLS), which now provides 10,000 SSM clinicians across Illinois, Missouri, and Oklahoma a way to locate patient EHRs regardless of where they received care, the medical clinic annnounced Monday.
- The new service will locate and share patient records so physicians know where patients received care, can quickly retrieve information, and improve patient safety and quality of care.
- Surescripts National Record Locator Service covers 2 billion patient interactions for 140 million patients across the country.
Dive Insight:
"By having a more complete care history, we can make faster and better decisions, avoid reordering expensive tests and help ensure that our patients receive the best care possible," Dr. Richard Vaughn, chief medical officer for SSM Health said in a statement.
The company announced the activation of its service in February and key partners including CVS Health, Express Scripts, Epic, and NextGen Healthcare in its effort to standardize EHR sharing practices.
"By 2024, individuals, care providers, communities, and researchers should have an array of interoperable health IT products and services that allow the healthcare system to continuously learn and advance the goal of improved health care," HSS stated in its 10-year concept paper for achieving interoperability in health IT infrastructure .