Community wide electronic distribution of summary health care utilization data

The development of the community wide data system focused on the following objectives: ongoing monitoring of the health care system, evaluation of community wide individual provider initiatives, identification and development of new initiatives.The system focused on the sharing of data related to hospital acute care, emergency medical services, long term care, and mental health. It was based on the daily distribution of reports among all health care providers related to these services.The development of the summary reports concerning health care utilization produced a system wide view of health care in Syracuse, New York on a daily basis. It was not possible to isolate the results of these reports because of the impact of specific projects and other factors. At the same time, the reports were associated with reduction of hospital inpatient stays, improvement of access to hospital emergency departments, reductions in stays for patients discharged to nursing homes, and increased access of mental health patients to hospital inpatient units.The implementation of the system demonstrated that summary electronic utilization data could provide daily information that would support the improvement of health care outcomes and efficiency. This approach could be implemented in a simple, direct manner with minimal expenses.In recent years, interest in the development and dissemination of health care data has increased within the United States. This interest has been fueled by the widespread use of digital technology to share information and the production of electronic medical record data by providers of care [1-3].For many years, discussions of the use of electronic health care data have focused on broad objectives and program outlines. These conversations recognized that the widespread implementation of electronic systems would be a complicated and extremely expensive undertaking [4]. The development of presidential interest and priorities concerning electronic medical records