What is a Health Information Exchange?
A Health Information Exchange (HIE) allows a healthcare provider to electronically access clinical information about a patient from other treating healthcare providers. San Diego Health Connect is the HIE available to San Diego healthcare providers.
How Does This Benefit Your Child?
Your child’s healthcare providers will be able to access and view your child’s important health information during an emergency or routine office visit:
- Medication lists
- Reported allergies
- Laboratory and radiology results
- Discharge summaries, history and physicals
- Progress notes
- Immunization records
How Does San Diego Health Connect Work?
San Diego Health Connect allows healthcare providers, clinics and hospitals to access electronic patient information from all participating sites.
When a patient is seen by a Rady Children’s provider for diagnosis or treatment, a member of the Rady Children’s team will search the HIE for outside records. This information should help healthcare providers make better-informed decisions and reduce the risk of patients receiving inappropriate treatment.
Along with Rady Children’s, many healthcare providers are sharing electronic patient information through San Diego Health Connect and Care Everywhere. In the future, more doctors and healthcare provider organizations will be joining the Health Information Exchange.
For the most current information on the provider organizations participating in San Diego Health Connect, visit www.sdhealthconnect.org.
In addition to San Diego Health Connect, your child’s information is shared with the San Diego Immunization Registry (SDIR), which is part of the California Immunization Registry (CAIR), and public health authorities. Specifically, the following information may be shared about your child: first and last name and names of parents/guardians, date of birth, types and dates of immunizations received, manufacturer and lot number for each immunization received, adverse reactions (if any) to the immunizations, other nonmedical information necessary to establish a unique identity and record, results of tuberculosis screening, current address and telephone number of child and parents/guardian, gender, and place of birth. This information will be treated as confidential information and will be protected in accordance with state and federal law.
Rady Children’s also participates in the Care Everywhere Health Information Exchange (Care Everywhere).
Care Everywhere allows healthcare providers to query other treatment centers that use Epic, the electronic medical record system used at Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego, Children’s Primary Care Medical Group, Rady Children’s Specialists of San Diego and UC San Diego Pediatric Associates and other organizations.
View treatment centers participating in Care Everywhere by state.
Safe and Secure
Your child’s electronic health information will be transmitted in a safe and secure manner. San Diego Health Connect will only store your child’s identifying information and some markers about where your child has received care. The Exchange will not store any clinical information about your child.
Notifying Your Healthcare Provider
To ensure your child receives coordinated care, be sure to tell your provider where your child has received healthcare services.
Opting Out of the HIE
If you do not want your child’s health information to be shared as described, please contact your Rady Children’s affiliated provider directly for assistance.