Hospitals and Health Networks Magazine had a great diagram and article summarizing where healthcare workers work in their September 2009 issue. I'm sharing it here because it also demonstrates the communication needs that we hope to address with health information exchanges.
Think of the patient who visits their family physician and is referred to a surgeon for an outpatient surgery and is referred to the hospital for further treatment based on some pathology findings. At discharge the patient is referred back to the surgeon and family physician for follow-up care and to a home health program, or possibly a skilled nursing facility, for support during their ongoing recovery period.
It will be really great when each of these providers can easily access the patient's records without waiting for the copy service or courier to deliver constantly changing paper records to multiple sites.
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