The Chesapeake Regional Information System for our Patients (CRISP), based in Baltimore, announced that Maryland has formally "gone live" with its statewide health information exchange (HIE). HIE is the infrastructure that supports the private and secure flow of health information among physician practices, hospitals, labs, radiology centers, and other healthcare institutions.
The announcement is a major step towards the ubiquitous delivery of the right health information to the right place at the right time providing safer, more timely, efficient, patient-centered care. Several more organizations will connect in the next few weeks.
Additionally, all 48 Maryland hospitals have recently committed to sharing data with the statewide HIE. This commitment covers 11,175 in-patient beds, from Garrett County to the Eastern Shore.
Other hospitals, physician practices, and clinics will be coming online before the end of the year, including many of the state's federally qualified health clinics, which predominantly serve Medicaid, uninsured and other underserved patients. CRISP will also be expanding the kinds of data the HIE is able to exchange as participation grows, from today's hospital discharge summaries, lab results and radiology results to medical documents that contain more complete medical information, sometimes referred to as continuity of care documents, or "CCDs."
