- To think back
to my paper days--
seems such a long time ago.
It seemed like
I'm in the Middle Ages.
We cannot imagine life
without
Health Information Exchange.
- I think that people want
to come into the 21st century.
They want to provide
the best patient care they can.
They see so many reasons
why this is important.
- I think that's good.
- I'm incredibly proud
of the states
for the work they've done.
Right now, we know
that transactions
supporting
Health Information Exchange
number in the billions.
We've had, I think,
great success
in a very short period of time.
- The bottom line for
the Health Information Exchange
is that it is value added
for our state in so many ways,
but the greatest of those is,
it helps to achieve
better patient outcomes.
- Here's your prescription.
- Before we had the HIE,
we were totally paper system,
and so it took
an excessively long time
to track down things
that we really needed
on a real-time basis.
We have actually been fully live
with an electronic system
for about a year now.
And even though it was a problem
to get started--
you know, that was one
of those learning hurdles
that we had to get across--
it's really very functional,
and at this point,
it would be difficult
to live without it.
- What's really exciting
is that states
are starting to exchange data
across state lines--
in California and Oregon,
Florida and Alabama,
and other states.
States have been
fantastic partners in this.
- Today in our New York
environment,
we have over 70%, almost 80%
of the hospitals
are now connected.
Health Information Exchange
as a public good
came out in spades
in the Sandy storm.
The superstorm,
biggest storm to hit
New York City in 120 years.
In some cases,
we had to shut down hospitals
because of the physical damage.
This network was there.
This network caught that.
When you shut down a hospital
and closed up its data center,
all of that data wasn't lost.
It was in the network.
- Hello. Good morning.
Good to see you.
In health care,
anything that improves
outcomes in patient care
is beneficial to everybody,
including the providers,
the patient.
You saw the cardiologist
couple of weeks ago.
- Yeah.
- Dr. Amsalem, right?
- Don't have to go back
for six months.
- Oh, that's wonderful.
My record system is linked up
with the hospital
and to the specialists
by practice-to-practice portal.
So I'm looking at his note,
and he says
you seem to be doing well.
- Uh-huh.
- And you will continue
the same medication.
A practice that implements
an HIE as soon as possible
is putting itself
at the cutting edge.
- We really want to take
the best practices
and the lessons
that have been learned
in states like New York
and Kentucky
and make them available
for everyone.
We don't need
to re-create the will
to create great
health information exchange.
- The system is only as good
as the number of people
that are in the system,
and the more people that join
the Health Information Exchange,
the stronger we're gonna be
in terms of being able
to provide
the most complete care
and the most holistic care.
- Does it hurt here?
- These are the kinds of things
that are public good.
It's a public utility.
It's a community benefit.
It's something that we owe
to the population.
- Oh, wow.
