Purpose of Grant Request:

To Improve Medical Care in Northern California through the
Establishment of a Health Information Exchange Network Capable
of Supporting Telemedicine Services in Rural Areas

Proposed Service Area:

Butte County
Colusa County
Humboldt County
Lake County
Marin County
Mendocino County
Napa County
Sonoma County

Project Abstract

Heberden Telemedicine proposes the establishment of a Health Information Exchange (HIE) network based on its existing prototype Electronic Health Record (EHR) known as HarmoniMD. Designed to serve rural Northern California, this network will function as a universal communications platform that unites disparate elements of the healthcare system into a cohesive whole. The effect of establishing the HIE will be to enhance communication among all medical entities, enable cost-efficient telemedicine solutions to deliver high-quality healthcare, and increase the overall health of the community.

Improved communication will empower patients to interact more effectively with caregivers;

· Enhanced acuity of care in a broad range of facilities, facilitated by more efficient communication—both with other medical resources and through direct communications with patients;

Telemedicine-based services can level the playing field between rural and urban medical care, enabling top-tier doctors to cost-effectively service rural areas;

Patient access to all facilities on the network through existing and universally accessible portals such as Google Health and Microsoft Health Vault; and

· Secure transport of patient care data between any standards-based (HL7) medical system.

Heberden Telemedicine, Inc, (HTI) is a non-profit California professional corporation founded in 2008 with the vision of improving rural medical care and increasing the financial viability of rural medical facilities. OffSiteCare, Inc. (OSC) is a for-profit California professional corporation founded in 2006 with the same vision. Although separate corporate entities, HTI has the active support of OSC in pursuit of the vision they share. Together, the two entities provide a dedicated partnership with combined strengths, and the synergy between their resources and inventiveness promises to be the catalyst in delivering high-quality healthcare to rural America.

Imagine a world where patients would not have to travel hundreds of miles for dialysis – or where Parkinson’s patients could see a neurologist without extensive travel complicating their symptoms – or where a stroke victim could receive emergency tPA therapy over the Internet, and go home symptom-free within days – and you will be visualizing the world OffSiteCare and its partners have already created within a network of five rural hospitals in Northern California. It is the mission of Heberden Telemedicine to build on these successes, and extend this concept to the rest of rural America.

By implementing the EHR/HIE coupled with telemedicine, five rural hospitals in Northern California receiving services from OffSiteCare have been able to provide quality care, realize an improved financial outlook, and make a meaningful contribution to the overall health of the community. Over the three-year duration of the grant, Heberden Telemedicine’s goal is to create lasting and permanent change by expanding our network’s geographical reach, fully developing the prototype EHR into a viable solution for supporting rural hospitals, and extending its capabilities into a universal HIE that will benefit the communities we serve.

Once developed, the universal HIE network can be easily implemented by other rural communities across America. The result will be a transformative model capable of enhancing communication, supporting the implementation of cost-effective high-quality telemedicine services, and improving public health.