Tribute to Group Health Cooperative
Founded in 1947, Group Health Cooperative is a consumer-governed,
nonprofit health care system that coordinates care and coverage. Based
in Seattle, Wash., Group Health and its subsidiary health carriers,
Group Health Options, Inc. and KPS Health Plans, serve more than half a
million residents of Washington state and Idaho.
Health Care Reform
Electronic medical records
(EMR) is a practice that can reduce health care costs and improve care.
Group Health recognized this nearly 10 years ago and now has one of the
most fully developed clinical information systems in the country.
Before I was a member of Group Health Cooperative, I would spend countless hours following up on my bills, my payments, my pharmacy requests, and making appointments. It affected my work day because these were all phone calls, many of them occurring during work hours. I also had to make an appointment to see my doctor in-person if I had even a minor question. Again, that took away from my job as I had to take sick leave and coordinate my work schedule. I was a very healthy person, but I still used several doctors, at different clinics. In one case, I was actually mixed up with another patient on the day I was to have an ovarian cyst removed. Because our names sounded similar, I almost had her hysterectomy.
After I joined Group Health Cooperative, all of that nonsense went away. For people who have chronic medical conditions, or who are caregivers of those who have chronic medical conditions, electronic medical records, and taking care of your medical business through the internet and their transaction web sites is a Godsend. And you can do this 24 x 7. If you were any other business than health care it would make total sense to do this.
Here are a few examples of the services through Group Health Cooperative:
- We can communicate through e-mail with our physicians
- We can renew our prescriptions by clicking a few buttons on the website
- We can see our test results as soon as the lab completes them
- We can make or break appointments on the website
- We have fewer questions to answer at appointment check-in time because our medical records are available on-line.
- We have a request in Teresa's electronic medical records stating: order two units of FFP at the first sign or symptom of a bleed
- We can complain and get a response and resolution
Why other medical institutions aren't doing this is a mystery to me.
|
