[medinformatics] Spokane Medical Network System Sparks Federal Interest

[Healthcare Informatics News]

Spokane’s Inland Northwest Health Services’
extensive electronic medical-records network*has caught the eye of some high-level federal officials, and
the*nonprofit hopes to be in on the early stages of an effort to form a national records system. From the
Spokane Journal of Business:



INHS CEO Tom Fritz says that earlier this month, he met at the White House with President Bush’s chief technology
advisers to discuss the Spokane hospital collaborative’s system, which currently handles patient records for 32
hospitals in Washington and Idaho and includes records for 2.6 million patients. The organization also is working
with the Office of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology to schedule a time when coordinator Dr.
David J. Brailer can come to Spokane to tour INHS’s operation.

Rich Hadley, CEO of the Spokane Regional Chamber of Commerce, says
that if INHS became a regional network, federal funds might become available to expand that network to include a
greater geographic area and a larger number of hospitals and patient records. “That would create additional
investment in our region and additional high-tech jobs at INHS, and might attract additional investment from other
high-tech areas who say, ‘I want to be in an area where they’re doing things like that,’” Hadley says.


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