Health Tech Insider 2nd Edition- A Path to Healthcare Interoperability: Making digital record portability a reality

Making digital record portability a reality

Written by Ayo-Olagunju Muna, Oluwafemi Agbekorode

The cornerstone of making patients’ electronic medical record portable is interoperability. Interoperability refers to the ability of different information systems, devices, and applications (systems) to access, exchange, integrate, and cooperatively use data in a coordinated manner, within and across organizational, regional, and national boundaries (HIMSS, 2020).

The information sharing offered by interoperability allows for more coordinated, efficient, cost-effective, and data-driven care, improving the quality of care.

Digital record portability speaks to the ability and ease of being able to move your digital records from one provider to another.

Life happens, and as Thor said, the only thing permanent in life is impermanence. Patients can change their medical providers for various reasons, and whatever the scenario, the medical record being theirs, they should be able to move it to their new provider. As logical and straightforward as this sounds, especially in the case of hardcopy medical records, this is not often the case, due to a whole lot of reasons we would rather not get into.

The importance of being able to port your data can be practically seen in the instance of the mobile service providers, where a customer can easily facilitate a switch from one provider to another while retaining their phone numbers.

At Genesys Health, we have taken the next step in democratizing patients’ access to their digital medical records, empowering them with the ability to port their records. Through our innovative ‘Patient Record Release’ feature in GeneSys v2.0, a patient can appropriately consent to release their entire medical records or portions of them to suitable 3rd parties and are afforded the ability to revoke such consent on-demand.

This would enable hospitals within the Genesys provider network to offer medical record portability to their patients. For patients, it would mean they can easily, securely and seamlessly port their records from one provider to the other, within our provider network.

This feature is a huge leap in the advancement toward achieving an interconnected healthcare ecosystem. Patients can update their information; consent/authorize the release of their information with one click, and healthcare providers can view all the data in one place.

The process is compliant with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) guidelines on information sharing, which ensures security while permitting patient access rights based on their willingness to release (Staff, S.H 2016). We have created a system in which the patient grants permission for the provider or administrator to view their entire medical history, but that provider or administrator cannot share any information with anyone else. This provides a way for patients to be more involved in their care without compromising privacy and security. For example, a patient via GeneSys can consent and authorize the release of a part of their entire medical record for research purposes, while still protecting other private health information. They can indicate the period of the medical record to be disclosed and the date upon which the consent is revoked, which automatically withdraws access to the data.

Digital patient record portability has long been a key component of the modern healthcare industry. Advances in innovations such as the “patient record release” feature have made it increasingly possible for providers to work together and share data. The ability to efficiently manage and securely share data between different healthcare providers while adhering to data privacy has a significant impact on the value you will derive from it.

We have always had a focus on building the capabilities to secure patients’ data and provide patients autonomy over their data while achieving seamless data sharing, and we are welcome to a growing number of organizations leveraging our EMR’s patient record release features for this purpose.

If you would like to learn more about how GeneSys EMR can help you, please contact our customer sales team via email at sales@genesys-health.com. We are always happy to talk!