Cameron Benjamin Stewart was welcomed into the world on Sunday at Newport Hospital with more than just the usual assortment of baby diapers, pacifiers and beanies.
He also got an electronic medical record.
Cameron became the first Lifespan newborn to be entered into its new records system, which after two years of software installation went live on the day he was delivered.
For the first time in Rhode Island history, a medical record will be attached to an individual from birth onward. And that’s just fine with first-time mom Nicole Stewart, who lives in Middletown with her husband, Adam, Cameron’s dad.
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“It’s cool,” said Nicole Stewart. “It’s nice to know that all of his records are going to follow him. We’re a military family. We’re moving in a couple of months. It will be beneficial as he gets older.”
It’s a sign of the times in the medical industry, not only in Rhode Island but across the country. Electronic medical records are seen as a way to deliver higher quality, coordinated care while improving efficiency and potentially driving down health-care costs.
It’s not cheap, however. Lifespan is spending close to $100 million of its own money on its new LifeChart records system. It will serve each of its hospitals — Newport, Rhode Island, Miriam and Hasbro — as well as the 75 locations of its affiliated primary-care physicians and specialists.
But the flow of information doesn’t stop there, emphasized Dr. John Murphy, executive vice president of physician affairs for Lifespan. Any physician — whether in Rhode Island or outside the state or country — can access Lifespan electronic records belonging to their patients.
“It allows you to have a single record on the inpatient and outpatient sides and across all specialties,” Murphy said. “All of the clinical caregivers for patients will be able to look at the same data. They will be able to see a lot of the information that the other providers have entered into that record.”
But equally important, he said, is that patients and the family members caring for them will be able to access their own records.
“The patient should always be part of the health-care team, but up to this point they haven’t been able to,” Murphy said.
That can be particularly helpful for those caring for elderly parents, he said.
The system was developed in partnership with Epic Systems Corp., one of the nation’s largest providers of software for major medical institutions. Epic is working with hospitals in Boston, including Lahey and Partners Healthcare. Some will adopt the program incrementally.
At Lifespan, said Murphy, “We did it big bang. We did it all 2 a.m. Sunday morning.”
In Rhode Island, Epic was also the choice of Care New England, which includes Kent, Memorial and Women & Infants hospitals. There, the electronic medical record system, which got up and running in the fall, is limited to outpatient care, serving 90 providers and 28,000 patients.
“We were the first provider in Rhode island to go live on an Epic platform,” said spokesman Jeremy Milner.
It hasn’t been decided yet if Care New England will expand to inpatient services.
“Both major hospital systems have Epic platforms. It’s good for everybody,” said Milner.
While providers who aren’t on an Epic system can still access information from Epic, the exchange of information can be more limited.
“This is an important story,” said Laura Adams, CEO and president of the Rhode Island Quality Institute, a collaboration between health providers, insurers and other experts that seeks to improve the health-care system through information technology.
The institute’s CurrentCare health information exchange is a repository of electronic data that gives doctors access to up-to-date information on patients and researchers a platform to study how the system can be improved.
With Lifespan opting to use Epic and connecting to CurrentCare, it’s a quantum leap in electronic records for Rhode Island, said Adams.
“For the first time these records genuinely talk to each other,” she said.
Just because a medical practice is using electronic records, it doesn’t help if it’s not linked to a larger system, she explained.
“That’s like everyone being on a fancy computer without the Internet,” she said.
Murphy echoed that idea when speaking about the decision to make LifeChart data as accessible as possible outside Lifespan.
“This is a major community benefit. We’re investing not just for our hospitals and doctors, but for all of the providers in the community,” he said. “We think it’s the right thing to do. If we do a good job, the health of the entire state will be improved.”
Date: April 1, 2015