What is SMRTNET?
SMRTNET stands for Secure Medical Records Transfer Network and is a Health Information Exchange Network serving Oklahoma health care hospitals, practices and physicians.A Health Information Exchange Network(HIE) is defined as the sharing of healthcare records electronically across different healthcare organizations. HIE’s provide the ability to electronically share clinical information across disparate healthcare systems while maintaining data security and the meaning of the information being exchanged between medical organizations.
The goal of a Health Information Exchange is to facilitate access to and retrieval of clinical data to provide safer, timely, efficient, effective, equitable, patient-centered health care.
Health Information Exchanges were created for many reasons. SMRTNET has the biggest impact on a few key reasons:
- Rising Healthcare Costs
- Patient Accountability & Engagement
Rising Healthcare Costs
One primary reason is to address rising healthcare costs. 30% of healthcare costs come from duplicate records, testing and diagnostics when a patient comes into a hospital for treatment.What this means is for an Oklahoma hospitals receipts being 700 million yearly, an average of 20% is from unnecessary testing due to limited or no access to a patient’s records. These costs can be avoided with the ability to look up a patient’s records within SMRTNET.
Case Example
An ER Physician is treating a patient presenting conflicting symptoms and he may have to run up to 5K worth of diagnostic tests to be able to treat the patient successfully. By using SMRTNET the Physician sees a diagnosis from another physician within the last several weeks and the ER Physician is able to make an informed decision on how to treat the patient based including the information already present in the SMRTNET record.
HIE’s exist to avoid bad results in medical treatment, duplication in testing, patient accountability, fraud prevention and unnecessary testing.
Patient Accountability & Engagement
5% or 1 out of 20 patients with a SMRTNET record will be able to make a tangible difference in how they receive treatment. To improve healthcare patients will need to play an active role in their own healthcare. HIE’s play a vital role in facilitating patient engagement. Currently patients do not feel they have an active role within their own healthcare as an informed individual. If patients feel like they are a part of their healthcare, then there will be better outcomes in healthcare.With SMRTNET patients can update their own record, in addition to recording treatment they receive at doctor’s offices, hospitals, urgent care facilities and prescriptions they receive. SMRTNET includes treatment from specialists including Dentists and Optomotrists as well.
If I join SMRTNET, how is it going to benefit me? And who else is a part of SMRTNET?
With an HIE, the member network is important and SMRTNET is no exception. SMRTNET has over 2 million patients within the SMRTNET system. Each individual patient can have multiple patient encounters within their own record. Over 700 million patient encounter records exist based on SMRTNET’s Managed Patient Index (MPI).SMRTNET brings in disparate patient records from numerous sources to provide the most accurate up to date information for patient records. SMRTNET uses specialized algorithyms to maintain data integrity for patient records. Current data aggregation for is over 90% for SMRTNET.
Success Stories
