8 more delivery systems to use Surescripts record locator service

Network helps identify where patients were treated, aids in accessing records, says Tom Skelton.


Eight more large integrated delivery systems have agreed to participate in a record location service offered by Surescripts.

The company says its National Record Locator Service (NRLS), which helps identify where patients have been treated previously and retrieve clinical records, now is working with providers that treat 140 million patients that have almost 2 billion interactions between those patients and members of their care teams.



The Arlington, Va.-based company runs the records location service over its national network. NRLS provides care teams with access to a patient’s care history regardless of where care was delivered and through any EHR vendor, enabling sharing of patient records within existing workflows.

The systems that have made commitments to NRLS include:

• Cedars-Sinai network’s 886 licensed beds, 2,100 physicians, and 2,800 nurses in the Greater Los Angeles area.

• Contra Costa Health Services’ (CCHS) integrated system of health care services, community health improvement and environmental protection. CCHS has one hospital and 11 health centers in Contra Costa County, California.

• 2,100 providers in four NorthShore University HealthSystem hospitals and 130 offices in Illinois.

• Legacy Health’s seven hospitals and more than 50 clinics in the Pacific Northwest.

• Novant Health providers in 530 locations across North Carolina, Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia.

• Parkview Health’s eight hospitals and several specialty outpatient facilities in northeast Indiana and more than 220 physicians’ offices in Indiana and Ohio.

• Sansum Clinic’s 200 physicians serving California’s central coast, including Santa Barbara County and surrounding areas.

• Sutter Health’s 5,000 affiliated doctors and 27 hospitals serving more than 100 communities in Northern California including the San Francisco Bay Area and Greater Sacramento Valley.

In September, Surescripts announced that it was making access to the NRLS available free to electronic health records vendors until 2019. Providers using those systems can connect to and use the network to find whether patients had been treated elsewhere and get information about them. Depending on the technology and needs of the requesting organization, NRLS can provide basic patient-provider relationship information; the coordinates of document repositories to automatically leverage existing point-to-point connections; and the ability to retrieve clinical documents.

Also See: Surescripts sets national plan to offer medication histories

Surescripts NRLS operates under the Carequality legal and technical frameworks, allowing data sharing across technology platforms and networks. Giving providers access to critical patient health information within existing electronic health record (EHR) workflows lets providers easily identify and share patient records across disparate systems and geographies, so they can focus more time on patient care.

“By using Surescripts National Record Locator Service, clinicians at these leading health systems can connect to our nationwide network and get critical patient information at the point of care,” said Tom Skelton, Chief Executive Officer of Surescripts.

Since the launch of the service last March, NRLS has handled almost 6.5 million requests for patient locations and returned more than 1.6 million location of care summaries.

Surescripts stores basic demographic information, provided by healthcare providers, for purposes of patient matching and identification, including patient ID/medical record number, patient name, patient address, date of birth and gender. This information helps ensure patient matching.

While Surescripts does not store clinical records, which are stored and maintained by providers, it does provide secure electronic transmission of records between providers. Requesting healthcare providers can request clinical records. This information may include: location name, physician’s name, location address, location phone number, visit date and technical connection information to contact the record location. The specific records or clinical documents provided will depend on the record location. A typical example of a clinical document shared between healthcare providers is a summary of care record that includes information about a patient's visit.

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