Established: 2005
Best Advice to New HIE: Focus on incremental progress towards community wide health record interoperability. Recognize the absence of unified clinical terminology services across the range of current EHR solutions, which are like isolated data silos. Avoid “big bang” or “rip and replace” proposals. Recognize when stakeholder self interest interferes with community goals or compromises interoperability. Community cohesion is more important than stakeholder or vendor driven deadlines. Limit initial participation to sites able to collaborate. Include a rigorous sustainability analysis for all technology proposals to demonstrate affordable operating costs for even the smallest, least capitalized participant. Avoid vendor lock-in scenarios.
Description: Redwood MedNet seeks to enable Lake and Mendocino counties to become a center of excellence in improved patient health outcomes through the adoption of modern health information technology.
The goals of Redwood MedNet are to:
- Enhance the quality of health care for all residents of Mendocino and Lake Counties;
- Facilitate the individual and collective practice of medicine;
- Encourage adoption of Electronic Health Records;
- Interconnect all participants in the local health care community; and
- Collaborate with regional, State and Federal health information technology initiatives.
Redwood MedNet’s initial focus is interoperable health records at solo and small practices. Later plans call for community wide participation with a special focus on population level Public Health monitoring and on HIE services for the five hospital emergency rooms in our region. Redwood MedNet looks forward to collaboration with other HIE initiatives.
Located in Mendocino and Lake Counties, CA, the Redwood MedNet HIE region has a rural population of 145,000 in an area the size of the state of Connecticut. The HIE region has Public Health status indicators in the bottom 25% of counties in the state of California, with no HMOs. Twenty-two percent (22%) of the population is uninsured, as compared to the national average of 15%. Additional information can be found at http://www.redwoodmednet.org/.
List all other organizations participating in the HIE: No “organizations” are participating in Redwood MedNet at present, although the Mendocino-Lake Medical Society provided a loan to Redwood MedNet for startup expenses. During this initial phase Redwood MedNet is a non-aligned association of local health care professionals.
For more information contact:
Will Ross
707-272-7255
wross@openhre.org
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