Establishment of Health Information Exchange Facilitates Telepharmacy Service

InformationWeek published an interesting article today about Health Information Exchanges (networks for sharing patient information between health-systems) in the United States. Marianne Kolbasuk McGee highlights a specific network, the Western Washington Rural Health Care Collaborative where by virtue of the fact that they use an Information Exchange, the hospitals are able to provide telepharmacy services to each other:

The exchange will initially provide the smaller hospitals, some of which have fewer than 25 beds and are located 35 or more miles from other healthcare providers, with telepharmacy services. Patient data, such as allergies, medications, lab results, and demographic information, is collected in a central repository, and pharmacists at one of the facilities can remotely provide assistance to other hospitals.

The article also mentions how 20 billion federal "stimulus" dollars have made it to or are destined for Healthcare IT needs of various health-systems around the US. Health Information Exchanges are one major result, and apparently provide a ready infrastructure for telepharmacy services.