For the past three years, the state Agency for Healthcare Administration has been building a system providers can use to share electronic health records. Now, the state system, called the Health Information Exchange, has linked up with a national group to allow Florida physicians to share documents across stat lines and with federal and non-federal agencies.
“And not only with state lines, but also with some federal organizations. [For example], The social security administration. And that’s a big benefit to practitioners who may be asked to provide medical records for a person’s disability determination," says Deputy Agency Secretary Molly McKinstry.
The agency received federal funding several years ago to start building the system with plans to complete it over the course of a decade. Federal dollars are still available for Medicaid and Medicare providers to convert their paper-based filing systems to an electronic format.
