HIEs See Role as Patient Portal Providers

He said at first the health systems were apprehensive about joining the PHR project, but full support was gained after several discussions. “They were wondering if they really wanted to send data to PHRs they don’t have control over,” Buckner said. “Those conversations were not insignificant or quick.”

Many of the health systems already had patient portals and had defined the business logic, timing and software filtering about sharing results. “Of course, none were the same,” Buckner said. “We had to account for different rules for every system that fed data into the HIE. Our programmers would say that was the most difficult component. There were a lot of architectural considerations to support rules and business logic components.”

Another challenge was dealing with a variety of legal requirements that are different in the three states that HealthBridge serves around issues such as sharing health data of minors.

NoMoreClipboard’s Donnell said the key thing that patients appreciate is getting an account already pre-populated with most of their health data. “They don’t have to start from ground zero in creating one by trying to get data from multiple providers.” Initial surveys of providers at pilot sites suggest that patients with PHRs are more engaged in their care, and more compliant with their medications. “The nature of the conversations is changing,” he said. People tend to come to doctors’ appointments better prepared and with good questions.

Stakeholder education is imperative, Donnell said. If an HIE’s goal is data sharing with patients two years from now, they should get started now, he added. “There is immense danger in underestimating how long the process can take.”