|
Clinical
Messaging Service
What Is Clinical Messaging?
A Rural Clinical Messaging Service
Redwood MedNet Clinical Messaging Timeline
Project Archive
What Is Clinical Messaging?
A clinical message service provides a secure, electronic
infrastructure to automate the delivery of clinical health data to
any site where patient care decisions are made. For example,
a clinical message service can automate result reporting from a
laboratory to a clinic (i.e., replace a fax or other printed
result with an electronic file). A clinical message service can
also enable secure electronic forwarding of consultation reports
between clinicians to facilitate patient care. Many urban health
care communities across the country have active clinical messaging
services (e.g., Cincinnati,
Indianapolis,
etc.). Generally, these clinical messaging environments are
accompanied by large hospitals (i.e., hundreds of beds), robust
IPAs (i.e., thousands of physician members) and group practices
with hundreds of providers. That is, clinical messaging services
thrive in densely populated areas with a robust health care
system.
Knowing the above, is it practical to operate a
clinical message service in a thinly populated rural region like
Mendocino?
Top of Page
A Rural Clinical Messaging Service
In July 2005 Redwood MedNet was formed as a new nonprofit health
information exchange. A primary goal of Redwood MedNet was to build a
clinical message service appropriately scaled to our rual region. In
April 2008 Redwood MedNet launched the laboratory results delivery
portion of a new clinical message service. The new service has the
following minimum technology requirements for participation by any
local medical practice:
1. An Internet connection with
2. a standard web browser and
3. the ability to print
from a web site
With this approach, practices meeting these requirements would
incur no direct software or message transaction costs to
participate in the start up phase of the Redwood MedNet clinical
message service, which is grant funded through 2009. However,
participating practices must inevitably invest some staff time
planning their implementation of the clinical message service.
Top of Page
Redwood MedNet Clinical Messaging Timeline
NOVEMBER 2004 -- Carl Henning, M.D., and Will Ross
propose a community clinical
message service to the medical staff at Ukiah
Valley Medical Center.
OCTOBER 2005 -- Redwood MedNet receives a
grant
from the Blue
Shield of California Foundation to conduct a pilot test of a
clinical message service in the Mendocino County region. The
clinical message project is managed by Mendocino
Informatics.
JANUARY 2006 -- Redwood MedNet conducts a
Physician Technology
Survey, supported by the
Foundation
for Medical Care. The survey is mailed to all 200 physicians
in Lake and Mendocino counties. In response to the survey,
twenty-five physicians volunteer to participate in the proposed
clinical message service.
FEBRUARY 2007 -- Redwood MedNet selects the
Mirth Project, an open source
HL7 Integration Engine for use in the clinical messaging infrastructure.
APRIL 2007 -- Test delivery of lab results
begins from the laboratory at Healdsburg
District Hospital to Alliance
Medical Center, an FQHC in Healdsburg.
OCTOBER 2007 -- Planning discussions began with
Ukiah Valley Medical Center to
deliver results from their laboratory via the Redwood MedNet service.
NOVEMBER 2007 -- Redwood MedNet conducts
successful 1,000 unit test of the clinical messaging service.
APRIL 2008 -- Redwood MedNet results
delivery service released to production at Alliance
Medical Center in Healdsburg, at a volume of approximately 1,600
lab tests per month.
NOVEMBER 2008 -- Results delivery by
Redwood MedNet begins from a second laboratory, Quest Diagnostics.
JANUARY 2009 -- Results delivery by
Redwood MedNet tops 4,000 tests per month.
|