Provider FAQs
What is currentcare?
Who operates currentcare?
Will I be able to view my patients’ health information through currentcare?
When can my patients sign up to participate in the HIE?
What will I need to do to enroll my patients?
Who will have access to my patients’ health information through currentcare?
What information will be available in currentcare?
Do I need to have an Electronic Medical Record (EMR) to use currentcare?
Who will be authorized to access information in currentcare?
What is currentcare?
currentcare is Rhode Island’s Health Information Exchange (HIE). It is a secure electronic network that uses state-of-the-art technology to ensure that authenticated medical professionals can access their patients’ most up-to-date health information. Until now, doctors, laboratories, hospitals, and others have relied on fax machines, telephone conversations, regular mail or patients to deliver health information to other providers. currentcare presents an integrated view of health information from non-affiliated health care organizations to the end-user through an Internet browser.
Who operates currentcare?
currentcare has been made possible through a joint effort by the Rhode Island Quality Institute and the Rhode Island Department of Health, with financial support from the federal government and other members of the health care community. The Rhode Island Quality Institute (RIQI) is Rhode Island’s Regional Health Information Organization (RHIO). As the RHIO, RIQI provides administrative and financial services as well as operational support to currentcare. For more information about the Rhode Island Quality Institute, visit the RIQI website at www.RIQI.org.
Participating in currentcare
PROVIDERS
Will I be able to view my patients’ health information through currentcare?
Once your patients have completed, signed, and returned an “currentcare Enrollment and Authorization Form” to the Rhode Island Quality Institute, then their health information will begin to be available through currentcare from participating data sources (as of today, most laboratories.) Additionally, in order for you to be able to view your patient’s health information through currentcare, your patient must authorize you on that same “currentcare Enrollment and Authorization Form”, either by choosing to allow all health care professionals who are involved in their care to access their health information, or by naming your specific provider organization.
When can my patients sign up to participate in the HIE?
Initially, health insurers, the state and some health care providers will assist in enrolling patients in currentcare. Eventually, enrollment processes will be broadened so as to ensure that all individuals who use health care services in Rhode Island can easily enroll in currentcare. If you would like to assist in the enrollment of your patients in currentcare, please contact the Rhode Island Quality Institute at 1.888.858.4815.
What will I need to do to enroll my patients?
If you are interested in having enrollment forms available at your office, please call the Rhode Island Quality Institute (RIQI) at 1.888.858.4815. RIQI has an enrollment specialist that will be able to assist you in determining the best way to reach your patients to enroll in currentcare. Once a patient completes a “currentcare Enrollment and Authorization Form,” it must be signed and the form must be sent to the Rhode Island Quality Institute at P.O. Box 28122, Providence, RI 02908.
Your patient will not be enrolled until the Rhode Island Quality Institute verifies that it has received the patient’s authorizing signature to enroll in currentcare.
Who will have access to my patients’ health information through currentcare?
By enrolling in currentcare, your patients authorize individual licensed practitioners who are treating them to access currentcare in an emergency or other unanticipated health event. Additionally, your patients may also choose ahead of time to allow all health care professionals who are involved in their care access to their health information, or they can limit access to their information to just certain provider organizations (for example, one or more physician offices, nursing homes, or hospitals). When they authorize a provider organization to access their information, they authorize all health care professionals at that organization who are authenticated currentcare users to access their information.
What information will be available in currentcare?
currentcare will include only information about a person starting from the day they are enrolled in currentcare. Today, this could include laboratory results from Lifespan Laboratories and East Side Clinical Laboratories. Eventually, currentcare will include additional types of health information, like radiology reports and discharge summaries. The types of information that may be eventually included in currentcare includes all information for which there are electronic messaging standards. At no time will currentcare include all aspects of the provider’s record, like an individual provider’s notes.
Do I need to have an Electronic Medical Record (EMR) to use currentcare?
No, currentcare is a web-based portal that allows any authorized authenticated user to retrieve approved patient records. If your patient has granted your practice access to their currentcare records, you will be able to access the records without an EMR.
Please visit www.DocEHRtalk.org, Rhode Island’s peer-to-peer resource for physicians and staff to find and share information about Electronic Health Records (EHRs).
Who will be authorized to access information in currentcare?
When a provider organization is registered as a currentcare user, they must agree to adhere to currentcare’s policies and procedures.
One of currentcare’s policies is to implement a role-based permissions (a.k.a., role-based authorization) system at every provider organization. Role-based permission is a security technique that enables or disables options for accessing functions and/or information in a given electronic system depending on the user’s role in an organization (e.g., medical professional, clinical support staff, or clerical.) A defined set of roles are established for currentcare, encompassing a set of rights or permissions to indicate which system functions a user in that role may perform and what information users in that role may read, enter, change, update and/or delete through a computer terminal. As part of user registration with currentcare, the unique identifying information for each authorized user of currentcare will be associated with a role. When the individual user signs on to currentcare, a user access profile is invoked and the user’s permissions related to system functions, patient records and content within those records are controlled accordingly.
Access privileges must be updated to reflect changes in user roles, employment or any other applicable user event. Appropriate security measures will be taken to minimize the possibility of unauthorized access to secure data by those who are no longer authorized to have access to that information.
currentcare employees will only be able to view patient demographic information through currentcare, for the purposes of data management. One exception to this is the currentcare system administrator, who may access information in currentcare in order to provide technical support to other authorized users.
