Rural Connection: Strengthening Care Through Technology

描述(由申请人提供)：爱达荷州乡村连接(RC)是九家独立管理的医院和一所大学之间的合作伙伴关系。其中六家医院是农村医院，被指定为关键通道医院。RC的重点是患者在农村和城市以及急诊和康复设施之间来回走动。通过自愿采用护理标准和严格的业绩改进过程，可以改善健康结果。 RC在两个关键方面阻碍了其使命的进一步发展：无法轻松地共享信息以提高性能；以及无法快速交换患者信息。RC成员认识到健康信息技术(HIT)是可以减少已识别问题的工具，并希望部署包括电子健康记录(EHR)的HIT。这个拟议的HIT规划项目具有创新性，因为它让两个小型农村社区参与到紧张的社区规划过程中。规划团队代表最终用户(即医生、护士和药剂师)、信息技术(IT)专家和患者。预计通过承诺 在一个以上的社区规划活动，将确定相似和独特的不同之处。由此产生的RC的HIT实施计划将适应这些相似和不同之处。然后，资源中心将准备在试点社区以及最终在所有资源中心成员之间共享电子健康数据。

DESCRIPTION (provided by the applicant): The Idaho Rural Connection (RC) is a partnership among nine independently governed hospitals and a university. Six of the hospitals are rural and are designated as Critical Access Hospitals. The RC focuses on patients as they move back and forth between rural and urban and acute and rehabilitation facilities. Health outcomes are improved through voluntary adoption of standards of care and a rigorous performance improvement process. RC is hampered in furthering its mission in two critical ways: The inability to easily share information for performance improvement; and The inability to rapidly exchange patient information. RC members recognize health information technology (HIT) as the vehicle that can reduce the identified problems and wants to deploy HIT that will include an electronic health record (EHR). This proposed HIT Planning Project is innovative in that it involves two small, rural communities in intense community planning processes. Planning teams are representative of end-users (i.e. physicians, nurses, and pharmacists), Information Technology (IT) experts, and patients. It is expected that by undertaking planning activities in more than one community, similarities and unique differences will be identified. The resulting HIT implementation plan for RC will accommodate those similarities and differences. The RC will be then be prepared to implement electronic health data sharing in the pilot communities and finally among all RC members.