July 29th, 2008

The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s new electronic medical record initiative, right now costing $225 million a year, is now linking the health system’s inpatient and outpatient records with medical offices across the county; allowing patients’ important health histories to be accessed by any medical professional who gives them care.

Reports the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

“UPMC’s goal is to enable computers at its 19 hospitals to talk with computers at the network’s 400 outpatient sites. It could be three years before everyone is connected.

Last month, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services picked Pittsburgh as one of 12 cities nationwide where doctors in small practices will receive cash payments for using electronic health records to improve quality of care. Earlier this month, the Senate passed a bill that requires doctors who treat Medicare patients to move toward electronic prescribing — using computers to supply prescriptions, instead of traditional paper.

Such steps are necessary to help eliminate preventable errors, experts say.

UPMC’s system, for example, provides warnings about inappropriate prescriptions, drugs with similar names, allergies and abnormal test results, among other things.

Patients are the winners, [says Dr. Timothy VanFleet], especially when they have several doctors such as a cardiologist and pulmonologist who prescribe drugs without communicating with each other.”

For more details, check out the full article.