CommonWell gives patients access to records

CommonWell Health Alliance has initiated a latest program that is hoped to provide patients the capability of more conveniently accessing their health records. CommonWell will give patients access to records.

The initiative will start with 6 electronic health record (EHR) vendors: Modernizing Medicine, athenahealth, Cerner, Evident, Aprima Medical Software, and RelayHealth. 2 standalone patient portal vendors, Integrated Data Services and MediPortal, will give an application enabling patients access to records by year-end, states Jitin Asnaani, executive director at CommonWell, which now involves more than forty health IT vendors that are cooperating to make better the interoperability.

“This is an actually big step for sufferer empowerment because CommonWell can distinctively fetch information for the patient, regardless of where the sufferer data lies,” Asnaani claims.

The utilization of patient portals to acquire this access offers a logical foundation for CommonWell program. That is because portals are a mandated standard characteristic on electronic health record (EHR) systems under the EHR meaningful use program, Asnaani points out.

Through engaging vendors, sufferers can enroll in CommonWell. Sufferers then can self-link their health information wherever they get care, view their information on the CommonWell network and share the information with contributors. CommonWell will collect information on behalf of its vendor partners.

EHR vendors decide to educate their physician customers on the program to give patients access to records.

Physicians increasingly require this information sharing capability, Asnaani points out, because the MACRA, MIPS and Meaningful Use programs, as well as several health insurers, tie financial incentives to increased sufferer engagement. “What CommonWell is doing is making information sharing easier without interfaces and large prices,” he further adds.

Either vendor will charge physicians certain sort of fee, although, is not yet clear, however Asnaani considers any such costs would not be prohibitive. Vendors aren’t paying CommonWell more for the service because the latest program is included as part of other services they already get from the alliance.

Vendors, although, will have to make new application programming interfaces (APIs) into their electronic health record or portal to connect with CommonWell. Upon a physician appeal, CommonWell will route information to an end-user, either to a sufferer using a portal or app, or to a physician.