Pittsburghs UPMC has brought two new programs online that will improve access to patient medical records for both families and doctors.
UPMC and local partner dbMotion worked with Google Health and Carnegie Mellon University to create a system for secure bi-directional online data-sharing. The program will be offered for the first time to UPMC patients this spring and could ultimately be used by nearly two million individuals treated by UPMC annually.
“Anyone is eligible, says Dr. William Fera, vice president, medical technologies, and medical director, interoperability, at UPMC. Individuals would create Google Health accounts, then sync them to online accounts with UPMC for themselves and their families.
About half of patient health records are managed by caregivers. Say Im looking out for my mom or dad, and want to keep track of their meds and labs–the patients can give a proxy ability to allow me as caregiver to access their records online, he says. Parents of pediatric patients would have the same ability.
dbMotion is a partner with UPMC and other tech innovators in the Center for Connected Medicine, and UPMC is an investor in the Pittsburgh-based start-up.The two also announced a new Blackberry application this week to allow UPMC doctors to access up-to-the-minute patient records at a patients bedside or remotely, while on call or away from the hospital. Research in Motion, creator of the Blackberry wireless platform, partnered with the locals on the project, which will be implemented by doctors at UPMCs 20 regional hospitals.
UPMC had already debuted paperless patient record-keeping at its new Childrens Hospital, which opened in May 2009. All patient care staff there are equipped with Internet protocol phones. Childrens recently became the first pediatric hospital in the nation to achieve the highest possible level of electronic record keeping certification from the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS).
Source: Dr William Fera, UPMC
Writer: Chris OToole