Seeking cure for e-records

By Judith Messina
Published: October 19, 2008

Maimonides Medical Center , Visiting Nurse Service of New York and numerous other health care providers in Brooklyn are working together to reform management of patient care across provider settings through the adoption of health information technology and electronic health records. The Brooklyn Health Information Exchange, a network that electronically transmits medical data between providers, hopes to eliminate the guess work on what drugs a patient should be taking when he or she arrives home from the hospital.  

“It’s really important that we bring medical care into the information age,” says Dr. Thomas Frieden, New York City commissioner of health. “It’s tragic that you have more fail-safe mechanisms buying a can of soup in a supermarket than you do getting medical care that can save your life or kill you.”

BHIX is one of 26 regional networks that are part of an effort to digitize patient medical records and link providers in the new Statewide Health Information Network of New York (SHIN-NY). The goal is to improve quality, reduce errors and make a dent in the state’s outsize health care bill.

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