E-Patient Update: The Joy Of Health Data Synchronization

Today, I realized that I’m a lucky girl. So lucky, in fact, that I get to have most of my health data accessible through one interface. No, I can’t access all of the data through a single interface — if that were true I’d be extraordinarily fortunate — but for day-to-day purposes I’m pretty close.

How does this happen, you ask? Well, actually it’s something fairly simple in principle, but powerful in action. I’ve fallen into a network.

I have been seen, now, by three physicians’ offices which are part of Privia Medical Group. Privia is a multi-specialty network of physicians who use the practice management and population tools provided by parent company Privia Health.

Because she’s part of the multi-specialty network, my primary care physician was able to refer me to two other specialists in the group with confidence and ease. But because she is part of a network of independent practices, rather than a group of employed physicians, I feel confident that she’s not unduly pressured to refer to these other providers. (I am definitely not a fan of staff model HMOs like Kaiser, which give you far too little choice of physicians and far too few means of recourse if you don’t like your provider.)

Just as importantly, at least to an e-patient geek like myself, I’ve learned that all Privia Medical Group specialists work with the same athenahealth portal. So when I log in to read the notes for one visit, I get to review the others as well, through a single sign-in.

Because members of Privia work with the same portal, I get the (sadly) unusual pleasure of looking at past and future appointments for multiple specialists as well as primary care on a single page.

Meanwhile, and this is of course critical, the provider I saw this morning had all the key details he needed about previous care, including an updated medication list, via a shared EMR. It always amazes me how hard it seems to be to give providers access to important details like this, but as readers know it’s still unusual independent offices share information fluidly.

While this is mostly good news story, it’s bit of a downer too, because it shouldn’t be such a treat to have your doctors share your information. Still, the fact remains that this is a high level of data sharing performance. The Privia set-up is a sure-as-shootin’ cure for my recent case of hyperportalotus, a nasty condition in which patients are beset with multiple incompatible portals by their providers.

Now, I still have to deal with two other portals (both instances of Epic MyChart) if I want to review my hospital care notes. But if I can be view all of my outpatient encounters with PCPs and specialists AND be reminded of routine care I might need (such as a flu shot), schedule and reschedule with my providers and pay any remaining bills I’m pretty darned happy.

About the author

Anne Zieger

Anne Zieger is a healthcare journalist who has written about the industry for 30 years. Her work has appeared in all of the leading healthcare industry publications, and she's served as editor in chief of several healthcare B2B sites.

   

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