Surescripts National Record Locator Service Now Live at 14 Major Health Systems Nationwide

Providers Are Now Able to Locate and Share Records for 230 Million Patients in Real Time

ARLINGTON, Va. – February 21, 2017 – Four major health systems, including Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center (Conn.), Singing River Health System (Miss.), SLUCare Physician Group (Mo.) and WVU Medicine (W. Va.), went live with Surescripts National Record Locator Service (NRLS) to equip providers with fast and easy access to clinical records for 230 million patients and four billion nationwide patient visit locations. This latest expansion comes on the heels of recent deployments of Surescripts NRLS across eight large health systems. NRLS now reaches patients in all 50 states and is live in 10 major metropolitan areas, including Charlotte, N.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, St. Louis and Portland, Ore.

“As consumers of healthcare, patients are demanding a more connected healthcare experience,” said Tom Skelton, Chief Executive Officer of Surescripts. “Our goal is to accelerate provider adoption of critical data-sharing technologies to increase patient safety, lower costs and ensure quality care. With Surescripts National Record Locator Service, these healthcare organizations have access to actionable patient intelligence, and can make faster and better decisions to ultimately improve patient care.”

As part of the Carequality framework, NRLS automatically queries Carequality implementer locations, allowing providers to electronically share data across technology platforms and networks. By enabling access to critical patient health information within existing electronic health record (EHR) workflows, providers can easily identify and share patient records across disparate systems and geographies to focus more time on delivering quality patient care

With this latest expansion of NRLS, thousands of healthcare providers across the country are harnessing the ability to identify previous care locations, share and retrieve nationwide clinical records and effectively get a more complete picture of patients’ medical histories. The health systems that are now enabled for NRLS to provide care to thousands of patients, including:

• Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford, Conn., is licensed for 617 beds. It is a major teaching hospital and the largest Catholic hospital in New England. In 2015, Saint Francis became part of Trinity Health - New England, an integrated healthcare delivery system that is a member of Trinity Health in Livonia, Mich., one of the largest multi-institutional Catholic healthcare delivery systems in the nation.
• Singing River Health System is a provider of health services and one of the largest employers on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Its network includes over 300 physicians and two hospitals – Singing River Hospital in Pascagoula and Ocean Springs Hospital in Ocean Springs – plus community medical clinics throughout the area.
• SLUCare Physician Group is the academic medical practice of Saint Louis University, with more than 500 healthcare providers and 1,200 staff members in hospitals and medical offices throughout the St. Louis region.
• WVU Medicine unites the physicians and scientists of the Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Center with the hospitals, clinics and health professionals of the West Virginia University Health System. It includes physicians, specialists and sub-specialists of the West Virginia University School of Medicine; the affiliated schools of the WVU Health Sciences Center; four community hospitals; three critical access hospitals; and a children’s hospital, all anchored by a 645-bed academic medical center that offers tertiary and quaternary care.

“Since deploying Surescripts National Record Locator Service in January, our care teams are already seeing the benefits of having real-time access to valuable clinical information, no matter where a patient previously received treatment,” said C. Steven Wolf, M.D., Chairman of Emergency Medicine at Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center. “We look forward to continuing to harness the benefits of NRLS to ensure that our patients receive top-quality care, in every circumstance.”

NRLS meets the demands of patients seeking a more connected healthcare experience, as evidenced by their responses to Surescripts’ 2016 Connected Care and the Patient Experience survey. The survey revealed that:

• 94 percent of patients feel their medical information and records should be stored electronically in a single location.
• 93 percent feel doctors would save time if their medication history was stored in one location.
• 80 percent feel they should only have to complete medical paperwork the first time they visit a new provider.

For more information on Surescripts National Record Locator Service, please visit Surescripts Booth #6660 or the Interoperability Showcase at the 2017 HIMSS Annual Conference & Exhibition in Orlando, Fla., Feb. 19-23 or click here.