Rural Health Grant

[Bruce Slater]

To the List:   We have a grant to study the feasibility of connecting a state-wide group of hospitals, clinics, private offices and labs. The grant is a planning grant (<200K US) for an implementation grant (<2M US) to make the system happen. The goals of the system would be:   A patient from any entity would be recognized at any of the other entities and identified from others of similar name, age and demographic characteristics. A provider could request, with proper authentication and permission from the patient, any information at a linked facility for electronic delivery to the providers facility. A provider could order tests, imaging and consults to be done at any linked entity for their patient.   Constraints: The entities have completely unrelated commercial vendors (none open source) and some have no electronic infrastructure. The entities have local customization expertise across the spectrum from none to a team of experts. Bandwidth is variable from fiber to dial-up.   I searched back over the last year or so in the list and picked out some posts referring to MPI and like subjects.   So, the opportunity are a couple at least:  An open source patient identifier functionality An open source record exchange system An open source EHR to be distributed to facilities currently without such.   We are currently surveying the participating facilities (less than a 100) for their level of automation and data availability.   We have a consultant named Neal Neuberger of Health Tech Strategies, LLC. who organizes the monthly meetings which have just started.   Appreciate any thoughts about next steps, reference documents, implementation consultants.   Thanks   Bruce Slater, MD, MPH Medical Director Computerized Decision Support University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics