New Statewide Medical Information-Sharing Network To Be Launched
January 18, 2008
The people of Franklin County, and others around the state, will benefit from safer, better coordinated and more efficient healthcare thanks to a new medical information-sharing network that will be launched this year.
Franklin Memorial Hospital is proud to take part in the pilot phase of the nonprofit HealthInfoNet, a statewide electronic health information network.
This new network will allow caregivers to quickly and efficiently access key clinical information they need to provide the best possible care for their patients. A growing number of healthcare experts believe electronic networks of this kind will help to reduce medical errors and lead to better, more informed treatment decisions that will save lives and money. As HealthInfoNet expands services across the state, an estimated $50 million per year in healthcare costs is expected to be saved as caregivers order fewer unnecessary and duplicative tests, procedures, prescriptions and hospital admissions.
Beginning this winter, more than 2,000 healthcare providers, including 15 rural and urban hospitals across Maine and one-third of practicing physicians in Maine, will join with the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention in a major 24-month demonstration of the new network. Following the successful completion of the demonstration phase, plans call for HealthInfoNet to be expanded to include the other providers who care for Maine’s 1.3 million residents.
Maine will be one of the first states in the country to create a medical database, according to James Harnar, project coordinator for HealthInfoNet.
A small group of Maine doctors began pushing for a medical records database about five years ago. In 2006, they formed HealthInfoNet as a public-private partnership, creating a 19-member governing board of doctors, health-care executives, patients, employers and government officials to run it. Dora Mills, the head of Maine’s Center for Disease Control, is on the board, as well as Brenda Harvey, commissioner of the Maine Department of Health and Human Services.
For more information about this project and our participation, please contact Ralph Johnson, CIO, at 779-3154 or rjohnson@fchn.org.
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