Dr. Kenneth Kizer, a doctor, public health specialist and former undersecretary in the U.S. Department of Health Services, and Peter Groen with the Computer & Information Science Department at the Shepherd University Research Corp, outline in a Charleston Gazette op-ed piece how West Virginia has taken a leadership role in the area of "in the use of health information technology, particularly in the area of 'open-source' electronic health record solutions that are used by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and Indian Health Service."
A few quotes from the piece:
- DHHR completed implementation of OpenVista, the commercial version of the internationally known electronic health records used by the VA last fall. This means that all federal and state hospitals in West Virginia now use essentially the same system. No other state has done this.
- A recent survey conducted by the Shepherd University Research Corp. found that 76 percent of state hospitals have at least begun implementing an electronic health records system; this is among the highest rates, if not the highest, in the nation.
- The Medicaid program has established the West Virginia Health Improvement Institute and an Innovation Community to teach caregivers how to integrate health information technology and medical home concepts to support patient education and self-management. Pilot programs to show the effectiveness of these efforts are underway. The West Virginia Medicaid program competed for funding from the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to support these efforts.
- The West Virginia Telehealth Alliance is one of 69 programs across the country that has been funded to enhance broadband capacity for nearly 300 participating facilities supporting telehealth and HIT applications in West Virginia.
This is exciting stuff for West Virginia and demonstrates that we can be leaders in areas of technology and quality of life/place when we have dedicated leadership, focus and support for bold ideas and initiatives.
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