Northern Illinois Physicians For Connectivity

Defining patient centered healthcare for Illinois

The White Paper for an
Illinois Personal Health Record
How the work of the authors of the White Paper
for an Illinois Personal Health Record
can inspire national action

A big effort has gone into the White Paper for the Illinois Personal Health Record
to influence patient safety through the use of medical records technology. The authors are defining an optimally functioning patient centric healthcare system in Illinois.

The vision for an Illinois Personal Health Record is that a patient centered healthcare exchange is technologically possible in Illinois. This project is a partnership between the Chicago Patient Safety Forum and Northern Illinois Physicians for Connectivity.

The purpose for an Illinois Personal Health Record is to help repair a fragmented health care system that exists both in Illinois and across the United States. A state wide health information infrastructure does not currently exist in Illinois. Primary care across the United States emphasizes treatment of acute and chronic care yet there is evidence of the positive impact effecting quality and cost of care based on a consumer centered approach to health. Consumers are becoming increasingly involved in wellness and treatment decisions aided by the use of personal health tools.

The goal of the Community Health Record Project is to:

• Categorize the personal health record choices available to consumers in Illinois.
• Discuss the barriers that currently exist to widespread adoption of personal health records tool.s
• Propose solutions what will allow consumers to share their personal health records electronically with healthcare providers in a private and secure fashion.
• Demonstrate that the patient, in certain situations, can be a better source of data than their healthcare provider or 3rd party payor.
• Show that various forms of data (i.e. EHRs, third party payors, etc.) can be merged into a clinical record.
• Demonstrate ways of sharing data across disparate medical institutions.
• Point out the potential benefits to Illinoisans for using personal health records.
• Engage the State of Illinois Government in interacting in a patient centered healthcare exchange.

Multiple examples of Personal Health tools including unstructured data entered by patients and structured data captured by provider and payor based EHRs will be included. The Community Health Record of Illinois (CHRI) includes healthcare providers and technology visionaries with an intrinsic passion for excellence. The founding organizations, (the Chicago Patient Safety Forum and Northern Illinois Physicians For Connectivity), are committed to systems solutions based on digital medical records for improving individual and population health status and patient safety.

Community Health Record of Illinois is looking for likeminded
organizations and individuals to join us in getting the White Paper
published and into the hands and minds of the policy makers.

To find out the little extra effort it will take to help put it into practice,
call 630-534-5160 or Email skahn@niphysiciansforconnectivity.org
and ask about the White Paper Effort.