Safe Interorganizational Health Information Exchange During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Accurate and timely transmission of medical records between skilled nursing facilities and acute care settings has been logistically problematic. Often people are sent to the hospital with a packet of paper records, which is easily misplaced. The COVID-19 pandemic has further magnified this problem by the possibility of viral transmission via fomites. To protect themselves, staff and providers were donning personal protective equipment to review paper records, which was time-consuming and wasteful. We describe an innovative process developed by a team of hospital leadership, members of a local collaborative of skilled nursing facilities, and leadership of this collaborative group, to address this problem. Many possible solutions were suggested and reviewed. We describe the reasons for selecting our final document transfer process and how it was implemented. The critical success factors are also delineated. Other health systems and collaborative groups of skilled nursing facilities may benefit from implementing similar processes.

Keywords: COVID-19; Interoperability; acute care; health information transfer; nursing home; transfer of care.

Fig. 1

In the 9 weeks since implementation, e-fax utilization has generally trended upward, suggesting successful education about the process and increasing consistency of usage. A downloadable PDF of this form is available at www.sciencedirect.com.