Meditech’s Traverse Exchange network connects more than 800 facilities across 200 organizations, providing access to health information for more than 43 million patients nationwide.
The interoperability network spans 45 states and U.S. territories and has facilitated the exchange of more than 430 million clinical documents, according to a Sept. 30 Meditech news release.
At the company’s Meditech Live summit, hospital leaders described how clinicians are using its Consolidated Patient Summary to retrieve records from other organizations. The feature was introduced at last year’s summit.
At Seymour, Ind.-based Schneck Medical Center, clinicians access external patient information for more than 75% of emergency department arrivals, according to Craig Rice, vice president and CIO.
“When providers can see tests that were recently completed elsewhere, they often don’t need to repeat them,” Mr. Rice said.
Priscilla Frase, MD, chief medical information officer and chief of staff at West Plains, Mo.-based Ozarks Healthcare, described a physician retrieving records from an out-of-state hospital and specialist within five minutes of receiving access to the tool. The records helped the physician determine disposition plans for a patient boarding in the emergency department.
The release included customer accounts of the network’s use but did not provide aggregate measures of reductions in duplicate testing, costs or decision-making time.
