The Louisville Health Information Exchange Inc. (LouHIE), a nonprofit community organization based in Louisville, Ky., in association with the Noblis Center for Health Innovation of Falls Church, Va., said it recently completed an eight-week e-health research initiative intended to assess the readiness of 1.2 million consumers, their healthcare providers and related health information product and services firms to support a community-wide health record banking system.
Conducted in Aug. and Sept. 2007, the research identified several common themes pertaining to overall community interest in participating in a health record banking service. These include the need for a trusted not-for-profit community organization to establish the service, a trusted environment, as well as privacy and security.
According to the organization, the telephone based research showed that 69 percent of consumers would value a health record bank type of service, provided their physicians supported it. Twenty-four percent said they would pay an average of $5.00 per month for an account.
Described as a central repository, the health record banking service provides a private and secure location for each person to store their medical records from all sources via a deposit/withdrawal process, the group claims. Upon enrollment into the system, the organization says individual consumers can deposit or withdraw medical records as well as control what data can be viewed by various clinical providers.
