A trade group representing U.S. health insurance companies is developing a plan that would give as many as 200 million Americans access to a personal health record (PHR) that could be accessed via the Web and transferred when people switch insurance plans.
America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) hopes the initiative will be a step toward developing a more interconnected health system in the U.S. by making health records more accessible and portable, according to Susan Pisano, vice president of communications for the Washington, DC-based group.
AHIP began working on the plan when it realized that many of its member insurance companies already offered health records to their customers, and that many of these records contain the same information. "We thought we could make a contribution because in the community of health insurance plans, much of the data you'd want in a patient record is already available as part of the claims data that the companies have," Pisano said.
This data is not as extensive as what might be included in an electronic medical record (EMR) that a hospital might use to house patient information. But it would include key information such as patient demographics, as well as data on a patient's history of screening exams like mammography.
AHIP is currently working to identify the data elements that would be included in the PHR by examining the types of data currently maintained by its member plans and finding commonalities among them. While the association is not actually developing an interoperability interface, it hopes to be able to define the standards that will then be used by its members to ensure data portability of the PHRs.
The association's work should carry some weight in the health insurance community -- it has some 1,300 companies as members, ranging from payor giants like Blue Cross Blue Shield Association to small regional plans. Most significantly, AHIP's member companies provide health benefits of some kind to more than 200 million people, Pisano said.
"Depending on how many companies adopt this, there could be a significant number of people who have health records available," she said.
AHIP hopes to begin pilot testing of data transfer interoperability shortly, with an official announcement of the plan in the next six months.
By Brian Casey
AuntMinnie.com staff writer
May 19, 2006
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