NEWS RELEASE
Date: August 18, 2023
Contact: Nathan Hokama
Strategic Communication Solutions
(808) 226-7470
nhokama@scsolutions-hi.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Hawai‘i Health Information Exchange Offers Providers No-Cost Access to Patient Data
for Treatment Decisions for Maui Patients
HONOLULU – In response to the urgent need for quality medical care following the devastating wildfires on Maui, the Hawai‘i Health Information Exchange (HHIE), a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the quality of patient care through the secure exchange of health information, is making its services more widely available. HIHIE is allowing providers on Maui and others throughout the state who are not currently HHIE subscribers and are serving impacted Maui residents to access and share health data at no cost for six months.
Using a secure portal, healthcare providers can access demographics, insurance, clinical history, laboratory results, and ambulatory medication histories of Hawai‘i residents statewide to deliver optimal care. Currently, more than 1,350 providers statewide have access to the secure portal and share 30 million messages with each other every year. A base subscription to the information exchange service costs $680 per year for independent providers. Qualified providers include physicians, clinics, pharmacies, and others.
“We know the lives of so many on Maui were abruptly changed overnight and there will be a long road to recovery. We want to ensure they have access to quality health care,” said Francis Chan, HHIE chief executive officer. “We want to do our part to give Maui healthcare providers all of the necessary tools to deliver quality care for Maui residents and their ‘ohana affected by this disaster.”
Access to the health information exchange offers valuable benefits. For example, patients may have lost all of their medications when their homes were destroyed by the fire but those medications are necessary to manage chronic conditions such as diabetes or hypertension. These patients can go to a pharmacist who has access to the patients’ list of prescriptions and can readily dispense a refill without delay. The pharmacist can also identify potential medication interactions for newly prescribed medications to treat new conditions that may have resulted from the wildfires.
In other cases, a provider who has access to a patient’s medical history can offer treatment to a patient immediately instead of having to first run diagnostic tests to determine what the patient may need, saving time and any out-of-pocket costs for the patient.
“The health information exchange can save lives, and we are urging all providers to take advantage of this available tool,” Chan said.
“Enabling providers to seamlessly and securely access and share patient health information has raised the standard of care in our state. Even patients have come to expect their providers to have access to all of their records to make informed treatment decisions,” Chan said. “We hope that one day all providers will have the ability to access and share patient data, even if this must be subsidized by the state to ensure Hawai‘i is well prepared for crises like the one we are experiencing on Maui.”
Providers interested in signing up for the no-cost service, may contact the Hawai‘i Health Information Exchange at info@hawaiihie.org or (808) 441-1374.
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About Hawai‘i Health Information Exchange
Hawai‘i Health Information Exchange is the state’s solely designated entity for health data exchange. The nonprofit organization, established in 2006, provides the technology, technical expertise, and governance that enables healthcare providers, including independent physicians, clinics, hospitals, government agencies, and health plans to seamlessly share and access complete health data on patients to improve the quality of life for Hawai‘i’s people and lower health care costs for all.