News: Two major health systems merge medical records for better communication

As of January 14, Novant Health and Wake Forest Baptist Health, both based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, merged medical records. The campaign, “Happy Together,” aims to let patients and physicians easily access their medical records from either system on one platform, FierceHealthcare reported.

Both health systems use the same EHR provider and a system called MyChart, which allows patients to access their records through an online portal, according to the release from Novant Health.

Only three days after the program went live, 6,700 patients had connected their accounts, according to FierceHealthcare.

 “‘Happy Together’ for MyChart will allow patients to combine data from the two systems into a single view to improve their understanding of medications, lab results, plan of care, and follow up appointments,” said Keith Griffin, MD, chief medical informatics officer for Novant Health in a release from the system. “It is truly a major step forward towards the goal of patient engagement and elimination of barriers of information and confusion.”

Both health systems have mature CDI programs in place, so they should be well positioned to share their records across systems. As with any sort of cross-system documentation sharing, though, the pressure for accurate and complete documentation becomes all the more prescient.

Editor’s note: To read the full story from FierceHealthcare, click here. To read the full release from Novant Health, click here. To view a presentation about Novant’s ambulatory CDI program, click here. To read a recent article about Wake Forest Baptist Health’s CDI resident education program, click here.