SERCH Project Recommendations for HIE and Disaster Preparedness
As Helen noted in her post on Thanksgiving, Superstorm Sandy re-emphasized the need for health care organizations to have plans in place for disaster preparedness, data backup and recovery. As New York and New Jersey rebuild, health care organizations are taking a closer look at what they can do to improve the availability of critical health care services for their patients, and in particular, the role of HIE in keeping patient information available.
This past July, ONC released the results of a two-year effort by the Southeast Regional HIT-HIE Collaboration (SERCH) Project on Health Information Exchange in Disaster Preparedness and Response. The SERCH project began in November 2010 and included representatives from natural disaster-prone states such as Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas.
Supported by ONC, the SERCH Project was a state-led initiative aimed at identifying information-sharing challenges during natural disasters and developing strategic plans to incorporate HIE into disaster planning. The group developed an actionable plan to improve HIE capabilities in response to disasters, both during and in the aftermath, focusing particularly on interstate communication and information-sharing, and addressing legal and other barriers to the use and disclosure of patient information.
Although limited primarily to the groundwork that needs to be covered prior to implementation of a fully-operational State HIE, the SERCH Project recommended five steps for any organization planning on sharing information through HIE to take to integrate HIE and disaster planning, especially where information-sharing could occur across state lines.
- Understanding the State’s disaster response policies and align with the State agency designated for Emergency Support Function #8 (Public Health and Medical Services) before a disaster occurs.
- Developing standard procedures approved by relevant public and private stakeholders to share electronic health information across State lines before a disaster occurs.
- Considering enactment of the Mutual Aid Memorandum of Understanding to establish a waiver of liability for the release of records when an emergency is declared and to default state privacy and security laws to existing Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) rules in a disaster. States should also consider using the Data Use and Reciprocal Support Agreement (DURSA) in order to address and/or expedite patient privacy, security, and health data-sharing concerns.
- Assessing the State’s availability of public and private health information sources and the ability to electronically share the data using HIE(s) and other health data-sharing entities.
- Considering a phased approach to establishing interstate electronic health information-sharing capabilities.
These recommendations can also be applied and implemented by individual HIE networks and organizations, not only at the state-level.
A full copy of the whitepaper can be found on the Health IT website. You can also find a summary of the report by Lee Stevens, Policy Director for the State HIE Program, as well as his blog post in 2011 on the Joplin Tornado and the role of EHRs at the Health IT Buzz.
