Share your ideas to support Connecticut health care coordination, access, and quality
The state is rushing to implement an expensive Health Information Exchange to access $48 million before a federal deadline. The state Office of Health Strategy (OHS) is moving forward very quickly despite concerns raised by consumers and providers about selling access to identifiable patient records to insurers and ACOs, privacy rights, the capacity of the state to implement an HIE, extensive use of out-of-state consultants, and whether the state’s HIE offers any value to improve care beyond what is already working in Connecticut’s current HIEs.
We are seeking better ideas to OHS’s plan to build another state HIE to better use $48 million for technology to improve healthcare in Connecticut. Two that have already been suggested include support for telemedicine and for small practices to implement electronic medical records and appropriately share information. Please share your ideas to:
- Improve patient care
- Improve medical record security, ensure that only providers treating an individual have access and only as long as necessary
- Support informed consent — Educate all consumers about the benefits and risks of health information sharing, and how to protect their rights
- Improve information and workflow for providers
- Get better, actionable data on healthcare utilization, outcomes and emerging risks (such as during a pandemic) to support data-driven policymaking
- Conduct better research on the impact of treatments, programs, and policy options
- Coordinate with community social service providers appropriately