Wayne State’s on-campus health center is undergoing various changes, introducing patient portals and e-prescriptions.
Campus Health Center Nurse Mary White said she thinks that with the use of modern technology, the changes will be successful: “We are bringing in something called a ‘patient portal.’ This is for when students need to arrange an appointment, and, instead of calling the clinic, they will be able to go on our Web site and schedule it for when it best suits them. Patients will also be able to access blood test results, insurance information and other general health information on their electronic record.’’
In addition, the patient portal will be able to link to the Microsoft Health Vault, which is an online, personal health record that White hopes to have up and running within the next year.
“It should be effective because we can upload information from our electronic record onto the health vault for students. Students can access certain parts and upload things themselves, as well as download previous medical information from the main health vault. There is no scanning involved as the information automatically gets uploaded,’’ White said.
The patient portal isn’t the only change the clinic is making – they are also introducing an e- prescription system, designed to make it easier for sick patients to get their medication from the pharmacy.
According to White, the health center and pharmacy are “working on the prescriptions to help patients receive their medication more efficiently.” She said the health center will complete a prescription online, hit a button and get it sent straight to the pharmacy.
“There is no paperwork, no students losing prescriptions, and the best thing is we can send it to any major pharmacies in the area. I think it will be really effective,’’ she said.
N. Phanor, biochemistry student, said: “I guess it’s pretty good that they are applying technology more between the health center and the pharmacy than before. It’s a lot easier making an appointment online than calling. If you think about it, there’s this whole issue of helping the environment too, so not using paper for prescriptions helps that.’’
Last month, Rhode Island became America’s first state to start tracking swine flu outbreaks using e-prescription data. By looking at the data, doctors will have an idea of the trends within H1N1, such as outbreaks amongst a certain age group or location.
Amy Zimmerman, chief of health information technology, said: “The data is very valuable for being able to monitor trends over time and to be able to see if there is an increase in the dispensing of anti-viral medications. We can map that against the other H1N1 indicators.
“Overall,” she said, “e-prescriptions and data are very useful.”
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