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V O L . X X I N O. I V F E B R UA R Y 2 3 , 2 0 1 5 20 H ealth informatics. It's not the most straight-forward term, but once you learn that it means the development, analysis and distribution of health information to help patients, it's easy to understand why it's one of the driving forces of Maine health care organizations right now. ough it seems like modern computers have been in use forever, it actually wasn't too long ago that MaineHealth, the state's largest health care organization, was just beginning to adopt a single patient record system that would allow nurses, physicians and other medical professionals across dif- ferent practices and hospitals to access a patient's records from a single file. at was a little over two years ago. Now, MaineHealth and several other stakeholders — including tech- nology and insurance companies, local government officials and higher educa- tion institutions — are working on an initiative to assess the current state of Maine's health informatics field and what can be done to help foster its growth. John Spritz is manager of Growing Portland, an organization founded by the city of Portland and the Portland Regional Chamber. He is leading a study of greater Portland's health informatics field, "Health Informatics Assessment Project," as part of the initiative, with support from the University of Southern Maine's Muskie School of Public Service. Spritz says the study's conclusions, which are expected in March, will be based on survey and interview responses from dozens of stakeholders, answer- ing questions like: Who is involved with this field? What is inhibiting their growth? Is there value in having organizations cluster together? "Most people have said it would be good to come together in some way," Spritz says of the dozens of stake- holder companies and organizations he surveyed. How that will come together remains to be seen. "Is that a trade association; is it something more virtual than that?" he asks. "Growing Portland is interested in seeing if something [like that] makes sense for this area." e stakes are high not just because answering those questions could help strengthen an emerging field of work across multiple indus- tries within Maine. Even more impor- tant is the health and well-being of every Mainer. A major undertaking Steven Michaud, president of the Maine Hospital Association, says the transition to an electronic health record system has been a major undertak- ing for hospitals. First, he says, there's a large upfront investment with technol- ogy. en there's the implementation, which involves getting hundreds of nurses, physicians and other medical professionals properly trained and com- fortable with the system. Last, there's the most important underlying issue: implementing security measures and following federal regulations to protect those records from data breaches. But the massive project is seen as a worthwhile endeavor. "ere's a strong desire and belief that it will improve care and save money by not duplicating services if we have an electronic record," Michaud says. Dr. Jackie Cawley, associate chief medical ofcer and chief medical information ofcer at MaineHealth, at the ofces of Maine Medical Partners Urology in South Portland. P H O T O / T I M G R E E N WAY Digital diagnosis Greater Portland's push to improve the health informatics field has high stakes F O C U S Learn how Portland-based HealthInfoNet is using its database of electronic health records to predict the future outcomes of patients at mainebiz.biz/HIE @

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