The National Library of Medicine, the world’s largest medical library and a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has formally launched MedlinePlus Connect. This free service allows health organizations and health information technology (HIT) providers to link patient portals and electronic health record (EHR) systems to MedlinePlus.gov, a trusted source of authoritative, up-to-date health information for patients, families and health care providers. MedlinePlus brings together information from NIH, other federal agencies, and reputable health information providers. MedlinePlus covers a wide range of health conditions and wellness issues, and includes key resources to inform patients about their health.
Patients using portals or EHRs that have implemented MedlinePlus Connect can access easy-to-understand health information on MedlinePlus that is directly related to their diagnoses, medications, and lab tests.
To use MedlinePlus Connect, an organization should contact their EHR vendor or work with their in-house technical staff to follow the instructions in the technical documentation. Full details, including an online demonstration, are available at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/connect/overview.html. MedlinePlus Connect accepts the coding standards already in the organization’s system, such as ICD-9-CM, SNOMED CT CORE Problem List Subset, RxNorm, NDC, and LOINC. MedlinePlus Connect only needs to be set up once and NLM regularly maintains the vocabulary mappings and topic links.
Since MedlinePlus Connect helps EHRs identify patient-specific education resources, MedlinePlus Connect may assist eligible health care providers in meeting one of the criteria for meaningful use of certified EHR technology. Health care providers must meet a number of criteria to demonstrate meaningful use in order to qualify for Medicare or Medicaid EHR incentive payments under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
MedlinePlus Connect can now serve any heath IT system that uses the HL7 Infobutton Standard.
Source: HHS Press Release
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