Inova Alexandria Hospital emergency department clinicians in Alexandria, VA can now quickly access a patient's prescription information, no matter where in the country they were written, thanks to a recently launched initiative by the Northern Virginia Regional Health Information Organization.The new service helps providers working with patients in the ED to retrieve and access patient prescription medication information from data sources across the country. Until now, achieving multi-system interoperability using data from disparate sources and seamless workflow integration into an electronic health record was not possible, officials said. The pilot provides a foundation for extending to a full information exchange through the use of Continuity of Care Documents and is a step toward meaningful use of electronic health records and health information technology.
