Rural Hospitals Can Gain Easy Access to On-demand Patient Record Retrieval at No Charge

As a rural hospital, you may not be connected to networks that allow you to easily get access to patient data. Seamlessly getting patient records from other providers means you need to have an interoperable EHR. If you don't, this process is burdensome - requiring multiple phone calls, requests via fax and sometimes even mail. Besides being slow, this process can also be error-prone. During circumstances like the COVID-19 pandemic, there are also limited staff to administer these requests, which means triaging and treating patients may suffer. During this pandemic, gaining timely access to the most recent patient records can make the difference in life-or-death decisions.

The stress on front line healthcare workers to quickly assess a patient’s acuity level and history, and prioritize patients at greater risk, has increased dramatically with COVID-19. Emergency rooms assessing and admitting patients as well as post-acute providers such as home health, telehealth providers, skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), durable medical equipment (DME) companies and others across the care continuum are all struggling with access to needed patient data. Consensus on-demand patient record retrieval can lessen that burden for the entire healthcare community.

While the nation is consumed with managing the COVID-19 pandemic, necessary scheduled and unscheduled services must continue to be delivered. The biggest risk with a pandemic consuming all resources is the sharing of patient information when a human is required to intervene. Care providers and staff are – and will continue to be – severely overtaxed. Consensus on-demand record retrieval can help providers fill in missing patient information without needing these added resources. We are glad to be able to support our care teams during the COVID-19 pandemic with this no-charge Consensus solution.