Health Information Exchange

What is a Health Information Exchange?

It’s not uncommon that the patients we treat receive medical care from many different healthcare providers, not all of whom are affiliated with PVHMC. Allowing our patients’ healthcare providers electronic access to medical information can reduce the risk of unnecessary or duplicate services, prevent delays in treatment, and improve the overall quality of the care for our patients.

A Health Information Exchange (HIE) is a way to share our patients' medical information electronically between all healthcare providers participating in the exchange. Authorized healthcare providers participating in the exchange may supply a patient’s medical information, or receive information about a specific patient.

Which HIEs does PVHMC participate in and who has access to these exchanges?

PVHMC is just beginning to participate in HIEs, but this participation is expanding. Currently, healthcare providers not affiliated with PVHMC can get electronic access to the PVHMC medical record of their patients (with the patient’s permission where appropriate). Authorized healthcare providers are being added regularly to HIEs in which PVHMC participates to better serve our patients. For patients that do not opt out, health care providers are permitted to use and share patient information through the health information network for any HIPAA-permitted purpose.

What Information is available in HIEs?

Generally, most of the information in PVHMC’s electronic medical record is available to authorized healthcare providers (and their staff) who certify to PVHMC that they are involved in that patient’s care. For some healthcare providers, such as hospitals, only care summary documents are available. These documents include basic information like patient’s diagnoses, medications, allergies, lab tests, and visit summaries.

How will my information be used by HIE healthcare providers

Medical information obtained by authorized healthcare providers through an HIE may only be used for purposes of providing treatment, obtaining payment, or to perform business operations and other activities allowed or required by law. The PVHMC Notice of Privacy Practices explains in detail the purposes for which a patient's medical information can be used and shared by PVHMC and the patient's rights regarding this information. Each healthcare provider participating in the exchange is required to have their own Notice of Privacy Practices.

How secure are HIEs?

All healthcare providers are required by law to protect the privacy of medical information. Special security features seek to keep patients’ information secure and prevent medical information from being seen by anyone who should not have access. For example, data transfers between healthcare providers are encrypted so that patients’ medical information cannot be accessed by anyone without the de-encryption key. If improper access does occur through an HIE, the law requires that the patient be notified.

What Information Is Not Exchanged?

Certain types of sensitive health information (such as psychotherapy notes, records of substance use treatment, and genetic testing) may not be disclosed under federal laws without the patient's prior written authorization.

Additionally, California state law allows mental health patient information, pharmacy records, communicable disease records, and home health care records to be accessed and disclosed for permitted purposes through the health information exchange network, except that providers may not make available to the health information exchange any psychotherapy notes, substance abuse treatment records, or other types of health information that may not be disclosed under applicable federal laws without the patient's prior written authorization.

Opting Out of the Health Information Exchange

Your or your personal representative may elect to opt out of health information exchanges at any time and without any effect on your access to care at PVHMC. Opting out prevents your personal health information from being shared in the health information exchanges, with two exceptions:

• The opt out right does not apply when the disclosure is made to public health authorities and the purpose of the disclosure is permitted by both HIPAA and applicable California law.
• Your information may also be disclosed through a health information exchange to facilitate emergency medical treatment.

Who do I contact for more information?

If you have additional questions about PVHMC’s HIE activities please contact us online at MYHEALTH@pvhmc.org or call 909.865.9995.

What HIEs do PVHMC participate in?

Today PVHMC participates in the following HIE arrangements:

• PVHMCHIE — this exchange is owned by PVHMC. It gives our community providers the ability to participate in the sharing of medical records.
  For more Information: MyHealth.pvhmc.org
• Inland Empire Health Information Exchange (IEHIE) — this regional health information exchange is managed by Orion Health. It gives authorized healthcare providers (and their staff) who participate in the exchange of electronic access to a patient’s medical information. PVHMC and other authorized healthcare providers supply information to the exchange and are able to access information that is in the exchange. This exchange is designed to reduce unnecessary or duplicate services and to facilitate your care by allowing other care providers involved in your care the ability to see previous treatment and tests.
  For more information: www.iehie.org
• CAIR – the California Immunization Registry is a secure, confidential, statewide computerized immunization information system for California residents. An immunization registry is a secure web-based database that can store your (and your children’s) immunization records. A registry helps medical practices keep their patients vaccinated on time, avoiding under or over-immunization and can help get information to your child’s school regarding what immunizations have been given.
  For more information: cairweb.org
• Medication History – medication history provides access to your current and past prescription history transactions from participating pharmacies and pharmacy benefit managers, which helps to better inform health care providers about potential medication issues for your safety and quality of care.
• CommonWell Health Alliance - operates a health data sharing network that enables interoperability using a suite of services to simplify cross-vendor nationwide data exchange. Services include patient ID management, advanced record location, and query/retrieve broker services, allowing a single query to retrieve multiple records for a patient from member systems. For more information: www.commonwellalliange.org.
• Carequality - facilitates nationwide interoperability between and among the many health data sharing networks and service providers serving diverse user communities, including payer networks, vendor networks, accountable care organizations, and personal health record and consumer services . For more information: https://carequality.org/

As PVHMC’s participation in other exchanges expands, we’ll update this information. Check back for updates.