Regional Groups Team to Set Up Great Plains Health Data Network
The Community HealthCare Association of the Dakotas (CHAD) and the Wyoming Primary Care Association are partnering to establish the Great Plains Health Data Network.
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- The Community HealthCare Association of the Dakotas (CHAD) and the Wyoming Primary Care Association are partnering to establish the Great Plains Health Data Network.
The network is expected to enable healthcare facilities to share records with other providers and patients to access their health data, reported the Jamestown Sun.
The two groups include more than 70 community health centers in North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming.
Care providers at community health centers have been frustrated by the lack of access to patient data, explained CHAD CEO Shelly Ten Napel.
"We've known this is an area of challenge for a while and we keep bumping up against it as we try to track improvement, as we try to understand where our patients are in the system — have they been to the hospital, have they been to the ER, " Ten Napel was quoted by the newspaper as saying. "So we've been running up against those barriers and know this is a big headache, a big challenge for a lot of primary care providers."
For healthcare providers, the new network means that patient health records and discharge data can be shared with other providers and health systems.
In addition, the network will enable patients to use a portal to see lab results, upcoming appointments, and medication instructions.
"There might be outlying issues, it could be transportation — it could be food insecurities, it could be housing — where we want to be able to provide those resources because that can 100 percent impact their health, as well," Becky Wahl, CHAD director of quality and innovation, told the newspaper. "So it's really collecting some of that data, to find out exactly what is happening from a whole person, patient perspective."
The health data network is receiving $1.56 million in federal funding as part of a Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) program to improve healthcare IT infrastructure at community health centers. In total, HRSA awarded close to $42 million funding to community health centers this year.
The financing is going towards expanding 49 health center-controlled networks (HCCNs) at community health centers set up to boost the accessibility of health services to low-income people residing in medically underserved regions.
“Investing in more advanced health IT will help put patients at the center and unleash the power of data, helping us get better value from the care delivered by health centers,” said HHS Secretary Alex Azar.
HCCNs are groups of health facilities collaborating to improve operational and clinical procedures by simplifying the use of information technology for providers and patients, enhancing patient data cybersecurity, and using data to better patient outcomes.
