The Impact of HIEs in Natural Disasters – #HITsm Chat Topic

We’re excited to share the topic and questions for this week’s #HITsm chat happening Friday, 9/22 at Noon ET (9 AM PT). This week’s chat will be hosted by Brian Mack (@BFMack) from @GLHC_HIE on the topic of “The Impact of HIEs in Natural Disasters.”

On August 29th, 2005, Hurricane Katrina, a category 3 storm, made landfall in SE Louisiana. Torrential rain and sustained winds exceeding 110 MPH quickly overwhelmed the protective measures in place, and the subsequent storm surge breached levies and flooded huge swaths of New Orleans and surrounding areas. Mass-devastation across Louisiana and Mississippi contributed to the deaths of nearly 1,500 people, forced tens of thousands more from their homes, and caused an estimated $108 billion in property damage. At that time, only 10% of physicians were actively using electronic medical records, and electronic health information exchange was still was in its infancy. An incalculable number of paper health records were lost forever. The lack of access to patient information during and following the storm significantly hindered medical response efforts, and required years to replace.

Fast forward to Aug. 24th-26th, 2017, when Hurricane Harvey, an even larger (Cat. 4) storm struck Southern Texas, and dumped more than 40 inches of rain on the greater Houston area. While Harvey has been described as “Houston’s Katrina” in terms of its intensity and impact, the story was significantly different for the healthcare delivery system. Two health information exchanges in the region, the Greater Houston Healthconnect (GHHC) and Healthcare Access San Antonio (HASA) worked together to assist both those who stayed through the storm, as well as those who were evacuated. GHHC staff actually shuttled between shelters in the Houston area, overseeing the set-up of HIE portals, to help clinicians provide care for patients. Providers were able to maintain access to patient records, even from remote locations, using laptops and WiFi to access EHR systems in the normal way. As a result, the response to medical needs, and continuity of care for the population impacted by Harvey across Texas was seamlessly maintained at a very high level.

This week’s #HITSM Twitter chat will discuss the opportunities, challenges, and value of community-based Health Information Exchange in connecting the “last mile” of interoperability, particularly in emergency situations.

Some additional reading:

Here are the questions that will serve as the framework for this week’s #HITsm chat:
T1: What lesson(s) should we, as participants in the healthcare ecosystem, take away from events like Hurricanes Katrina & Harvey? #HITsm

T2: What roles do/should stakeholders: government (local, state, federal), HC providers, private sector, citizenry play in assuring adequate preparation for disasters? #HITsm

T3: What responsibilities do health IT infrastructure vendors (EHR), and Health Information Exchange have in supporting successful emergency response? #HITsm

T4: How do community based HIE’s differ from national interoperability efforts and/or vendor based solutions in emergency situations? #HITsm

T5: What examples from your own local communities can you share where community-based health information exchange either made a difference, or COULD have made a difference in responding to a public emergency? #HITsm

Bonus: Aside from the basic task of networking disparate healthcare providers, how could Health Information Exchange contribute to better connected communities? #HITsm

Upcoming #HITsm Chat Schedule
9/29 – Condition Management vs Episodic Care Management
Hosted by Brian Eastwood (@Brian_Eastwood) from @ChilmarkHIT

10/6 – After Death Data Donation – A #hITsm Halloween Horror Chat
Hosted by Regina Holliday (@ReginaHolliday), Founder of #TheWalkingGallery

10/13 – Role of Provider Engagement for Improving Data Accuracy
Hosted by @CAQH

We look forward to learning from the #HITsm community! As always, let us know if you’d like to host a future #HITsm chat or if you know someone you think we should invite to host.

If you’re searching for the latest #HITsm chat, you can always find the latest #HITsm chat and schedule of chats here.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

   

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