Keeping the focus on patient care
Dr. Lewis W. Marshall, Jr., a physician leader at Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx, is a fervent advocate of patient data available through health information exchange (HIE). Healthix first came to know Dr. Marshall while he worked as the Chair of Emergency Medicine at Brookdale Hospital in Brooklyn, more than a decade ago. Over the years, he has shared his excitement with colleagues throughout NYC, concerning the expanding value and flexibility of HIE data.
Most recently, Dr. Marshall encouraged the adoption of HIE among colleagues at his new home at Lincoln Hospital, as well as throughout the NYC Health + Hospitals health care system.
“Wherever I go, I’m thinking about HIE and how this tool can be incorporated into patient care.”
— Lewis W. Marshall, Jr., MD, Disaster Medicine Specialist
Dr. Marshall notes that rapid access to real-time data enables providers to obtain a fuller and immediate picture of the patient, fostering more appropriate care. This is particularly important if a patient is unable to speak for themselves, such as in the case of an emergency. The data is also valuable during pandemics to help public health officials assess the extent of community spread and support contact tracing efforts.
Having witnessed, firsthand, the evolution of health information exchange over the years, Dr. Marshall is encouraged about leveraging the broadening capabilities of HIE at Lincoln Hospital. At Healthix, data that began as basic clinical information, lab values and alerts have grown in scope and sophistication to include SMART Alerts, radiology images, analytics and extensive reporting.
Dr. Marshall is exploring applications of Healthix data to better coordinate care and social services for Lincoln’s patients, a predominantly low-income, underserved population. He envisions that Healthix data will support increased innovation in the hospital’s population health management programs (e.g., for hypertension and diabetes), where patient history, social determinants of health information, diagnoses and other HIE data would be essential in informing treatment, predicting risks and mitigating disease progression.
