Dear Colleagues,
On behalf of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), we wanted to inform you of the release of
Health Information Exchange Issue Brief: National Emergency Medical Services Use Cases. This report sets the stage for discussion and collaboration among Emergency Medical Service (EMS) agencies, Health Information Exchange (HIE) organizations, and the health communities and customers they serve. The primary audiences are EMS and HIE entities and their many clients. Perhaps the most important anticipated benefits from the implementation of these, or related, use cases are the many lives that could benefit from increased and improved sharing of information between these organizations in support of the communities they serve.
The goals of this report include summarizing and understanding the use cases for EMS to participate in health information exchange, understanding how EMS participation can enhance and improve data sharing enabled through this exchange, and understanding how these improvements could in turn increase the ability for HIE organizations to sustain and expand their services to their customers. Additional goals of this issue brief are to position the use cases in the context of population health, care coordination, and new models of health care delivery, as well as foster more discussion about how EMS, HIEs, and communities can collaborate.
Please feel free to disseminate this issue brief broadly to your networks as you deem appropriate.
Sincerely,
Emergency Care Coordination Center (ECCC)
HHS / ASPR / OPP / DHSP
Thomas P. O’Neill Federal Building
200 C Street SW, Washington, DC 20024
www.phe.gov/eccc