INHS may be looking to go global

Inland Northwest Health Services may not have a marketing organization in Ireland, but it does have a salesman, and a high-ranking one at that.

Phillip Bond, undersecretary for technology at the U.S. Department of Commerce, was apparently talking up the company’s technology during a recent meeting with that nation’s minister of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Micheál Martin. An official from the U.S. embassy in Dublin says Bond suggested the INHS information network connecting hospitals from Spokane to Palmer, Alaska, to Twin Falls, Idaho, could be a model for the Irish.

Dale Tasharski, the embassy’s counselor for commercial affairs, got a demonstration of the system’s capabilities during a Spokane visit last month.

“We hope he’s going to bring some more Irish back,” INHS Chief Executive Officer Tom Fritz says.

He adds that Bond, who visited Spokane last September, has become an advocate of the INHS system, which enables doctors and hospitals to share patient information. Bond’s interest could be critical as the U.S. moves haltingly towards a unified national network for exchanging information, with some sort of electronic prescription system, or e-prescription, coming first.

Monday, a doctor and hospital administrator told a few of the nation’s governors that electronic patient records could improve care and save the nation’s health care systems billions of dollars. The senior clinical analyst of Danville (Va.) Regional Health System said e-prescription was saving her hospital almost $1 million a year because patients were no longer receiving too much medication, medication at the wrong time, or drugs harmful if used together.

The governors are meeting in the nation’s capital to compare notes on several topics. Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne attended the health information hearing.

Unfortunately, a $50 million Bush administration budget proposal for exploring the possibilities of a national records system got lost in the shuffle last year. A make-up $100 million is included in this year’s budget. In the meantime, Fritz says, a bare-bones federal effort survives off pickings from other budgets. Dr. David Brailer, national coordinator for health information technology at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, also took in Monday’s testimony.

Fritz says HHS last year sought comments on the possible characteristics of an information-sharing demonstration. He expects the department to seek proposals later this year.

Brailer, who developed a small data-sharing system for Santa Barbara, Calif., has visited Stanford and Harvard universities to assess the programs under development at those two prestigious schools and associated medical facilities.

“They’re all just kind of getting set up,” Fritz says. “We’re kind of light years ahead of many other communities.”

INHS, formed in 1994 as a partnership between Providence Health Services of Eastern Washington and Empire Health Services, has been building its information system since 1997. More than 35 hospitals and 500 doctors can now share patient charts, X-rays, lab reports and other diagnostic information on office or handheld computers. In December, the Emerging Technologies and Healthcare Innovations Congress awarded INHS a first-place award for its TelePharmacy system.

Fritz says the Centers for Disease Control and Department of Homeland Security are also looking for a system that can quickly detect unusual disease clusters that may signal potential epidemics, either natural or terrorist-caused. Pacific Northwest National Laboratories has developed software that, if integrated into the INHS system, might have that ability.

INHS’s expansion into Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and California creates a geographic footprint that will make the Northwest a possible laboratory for a disease-detection system, Fritz says.

Meanwhile, he says the state of Washington continues to be impressed with the INHS Center of Occupational Health and Education, which tracks workers compensation claims and worker treatment. Yakima may be added to the list of areas covered by the project. The center handles 9,000 claims with the equivalent of just two full-time employees.

Fritz says INHS should be able to step up the pace of expansion thanks to a decision by Providence and Empire Health that will allow it to retain earnings. “We definitely have a growth business plan,” he says.

Ireland would be the green icing on the cake. Any additional contact with Martin could be extremely rewarding. Previously, he was Ireland’s Minister of Health, and Minister of Education and Science. This is a man whose eye you want to have.

With St. Patrick’s Day approaching, it would be a fine time to have that Irish eye smiling.