UC Davis Offers Guide To Health Information Exchange Standards

The UC Davis Health System has system has released the first edition of its free buyers’ guide to health information exchange. Prepared by the health system’s Institute for Population Health and Improvement, the guide identifies the basic features and standards that should be in place to facilitate the exchange of health care information statewide.

The goal is to help doctors, hospitals and other health care providers make informed choices when discussing health information with electronic medical record vendors and others. The guide allows purchasers to make side-by-side comparisons of important features. It also provides information about how well health information organizations support the standards.

The UC Davis institute has signed a $17.5 million agreement with state and federal health officials to lead the effort to electronically link doctors, hospitals and emergency rooms statewide by 2014. “Notwithstanding the improved information flow that an electronic health record makes possible within a hospital or medical practice, even certified EHRs often have limited capacity to share important care-related data with other EHRs, in effect creating electronic information silos,” institute director Dr. Ken Kizer said in a news release...