Governor O’Malley’s 15 Strategic Policy Goals
13. Establish Best in the Nation Statewide Health Information Exchange and Electronic Health Records Adoption by End 2012
To aid in lowering the high cost of health care and to help in providing physicians and hospitals with greater treatment capacity, the O’Malley-Brown Administration has developed and is implementing a plan to build a nation-leading health information exchange and to expand the use of electronic health records in Maryland.
Health Information Exchange is a way of instantly and securely sharing health information among approved doctors' offices, hospitals, and other health organizations.
Progress to Date
All 46 acute care hospitals in Maryland have a live VPN connection.
Strategies:
- Complete robust health information exchange to share patient information among healthcare providers, in order to:
- Connect 46 acute care hospitals to the exchange;
- Enable 7,907 physician practices with electronic health records to connect to the exchange; and
- Connect the 234 nursing homes in the state to the exchange.
- Expand the use of electronic health records by healthcare providers across the State. The goal by 2012 is for Maryland to have the highest rate of electronic health record adoption in the nation. Next steps include continue hospital connectivity efforts with goal of all hospitals sending ADT data by Dec 2012.
Read the more detailed plan to achieve this important health care goal...
Delivering Results
- Together, Maryland became the first state in the nation to create incentives for doctors and hospitals to adopt electronic health records.
- Facilitated creation of the Chesapeake Regional Information System for our Patients (CRISP) as Maryland’s statewide health information exchange
- More than doubled funding for the statewide health information exchange through federal grants, adding over $14 million to the State’s initial pool of $10 million for the construction of the exchange.
- Efforts are currently underway to get the nearly 6,900 physician practices in Maryland to connect to the exchange. In order to encourage physician practices to adopt Electronic Health Records (EHR), the Maryland Health Care Commission (MHCC) has developed an EHR Product Portfolio to provide physicians with evaluation and comparison information on EHR vendors. EHR Product Portfolio
Progress toward delivery is monitored by the GDU, and assessed regularly at agency and cross-agency Stat meetings.
