5 Health Systems Plan to Share Patient Data Through Consortium

Five innovative and leading health systems, each of whom are pioneers in the use of electronic medical records for their patients, joined together to announce a new initiative to securely exchange electronic health data, with the first data exchange planned in the next year.

These leading care systems have created the Care Connectivity Consortium to pioneer the effective connectivity of electronic patient information in an approach that protects patient confidentiality.

Collectively bringing together both the latest technology and a shared mission to deliver patient-centered high-value health care to the citizens of this nation, Geisinger Health System (Pa.), Kaiser Permanente (Calif.), Mayo Clinic (Minn.), Intermountain Healthcare (Utah), and Group Health Cooperative (Wash.) announced the creation of an interoperability consortium. The consortium will utilize standards-based health information technology to share data about patients electronically.

The goal of the consortium is to demonstrate better and safer care with better data availability. Patients will benefit. If a patient from one system gets sick far from home and must receive health care in another system—or if any system sends patients to another—doctors and nurses at each of the consortium systems will be able to easily and quickly access invaluable information about the patient's medications, allergies, and health conditions, allowing them to provide the right kind of treatment at the right time and avoid unintended consequences like adverse medication interactions.