Implementing Patient Passports
Asking “why” questions during an IT's discovery process or business requirements gathering of healthcare IT would lead to the conclusion that individual patients should be required to have an information or "patient passport".
Last year, the “Patient and Family Engagement Action Team” came up with a paper form of a “patient passport” and there are some startups trying create a useful electronic version and pilot programs, such as Planetree. But the issue is how to convince healthcare systems to connect and use it has an actual passport, beyond a disconnected paper or electronic book concept.
For example, when hospitals refer a patient to a specialist, the specialist’s office software is still most likely different from the hospital’s system. This means that the content and information sent with the patient loses its context. The information is sent to the specialist in the form of paper, email attachments, faxes, website forms, etc. However, the content needs to be reconnected to the patient’s personal and health information. This process of reestablishing a patient’s information passport is usually (still) accepted as unavoidable. But, this is an example of when/where “why” questions should be asked:
- Why should the referral of a patient to another institution be grounds for wiping out that patient’s information continuity?
- Why are there still barriers to sharing at least the core patient information from one health system to another?
- Why is information security still an issue in healthcare systems?
- Why doesn’t the state have a patient information passport which, like a driver’s license, holds that patient’s vital information, healthcare history, prescriptions, allergies, etc.?
- Why do we have to sign HIPPA agreements over and over again?
- Why do health insurance companies accept this information disconnect?
Like traveling across international borders, patient should have the ability to prove who they are, what health issues they have, and how to access their medical records. This would all be based on the currently silo'd healthcare information exchanges and "gateways" out there, to once and for all, give patients a universal identity which, like a passport, ensures their information access and security.
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