$1 Million to be Invested in Capital Region Electronic Medical Record System

An alliance of health professionals in the Capital region is moving to bring the first regional electronic medical record system to the state of Michigan.

Calling itself the Capital Area Regional Health Information Organization (Capital Area RHIO), its new network could cost $1 million to get started, but reap $10 million per year in benefits, says Dr. James R. (Randy) Hillard, Vice Provost of human and osteopathic medicine and nursing at Michigan State University (MSU), and a RHIO member.

The new system, powered with a just-inked contract with San Jose, Calif.-based Axolotl Corp.’s Elysium Exchange, would increase efficiencies in a number of areas, and potentially save lives, says Hillard, who has had experience with the same company’s product and service.

Before his move to the Capital region a year and a half ago, Hillard worked in Cincinnati where he was CEO for a group medical practice working with psychiatric and emergency room services.

“You could have people come into the ER in a coma and have no way of knowing their medical histories,” he says. “Acutely agitated people would come in, unable to tell about their medications.”

Then the Axolotl system was adopted, and it made a great difference, he says.

Doctors in Cincinnati were able to look at a consolidated medical record and see, for example, the results of a patient’s $3,000 magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) without ordering another one.

“There is power in shared information,” says David Gift, MSU’s vice provost for libraries, computing and technology and another RHIO member.

The Capital Area RHIO has been working on a shared information program for four years. It is nearly ready to go now in a phased process and leaders hope to attract federal stimulus dollars. Partners include hospitals, businesses, health care professionals, health departments and volunteers from Clinton, Eaton and Ingham counties.

Gift sees the new RHIO as an economic development tool. People considering places to move corporate headquarters are asking about health costs, and the Capital region will be able to tout its more efficient and safer system once Elysium Exchange is implemented. However, full implementation could take several years.

Source: James R. Hillard, M.D., Michigan State University

Gretchen Cochran, Innovation & Jobs editor, may be reached here.