Fewer Than Half of California Counties Have Electronic Health Information Projects
Twenty-six of California's 58 counties have regional health information organization initiatives in place, and most of those are in preliminary stages, according to a survey released by the not-for-profit California Regional Health Information Organization, the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal reports.
CalRHIO, which was formed in April to help facilitate electronic medical exchanges in the state, is run by the Health Technology Center. The study, which was conducted this summer, found that most of the state's existing projects focus on disease management or outpatient electronic health records system.
According to the survey, 41% of initiative leaders said funding was their main obstacle. Although 60% of initiatives' current funding comes from grants, the initiatives currently do not have a permanent source of funding, the Business Journal reports (Cutland, Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal, 9/26).
CalRHIO plans to encourage more RHIO projects by holding periodical stakeholder meetings and developing several pilot projects that will test vendor technologies and consumer preferences of personal health record and electronic prescribing systems.
Ann Donovan, CalRHIO's project director, said the organization eventually expects to see an Internet-based statewide data exchange network that can send patient information between facilities (Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal, 9/26).