Through SHARE, doctors can coordinate with others involved in your care, reduce mistakes and duplicate testing, better manage chronic diseases, and save your life in an emergency. The Arkansas Office of Health Information Technology (OHIT), created by Act 891 of 2011, operates SHARE as Arkansas' fully-scaled and interoperable health information exchange (HIE). Improving the delivery, coordination
and quality of health care in Arkansas
Mission
Health information exchange isn’t just about technology—it’s about everything the movement of patient health information makes possible:
Coordinating patient care efficiently among many different doctors
Giving health care providers more complete patient information at the time of treatment
Empowering providers and patients to make better treatment decisions—together
Enabling patients to spend less time completing paperwork and more time talking with their doctors
Improving the management of chronic diseases
Reducing medication errors and duplicate tests
Bettering the quality of health care in Arkansas
Putting patients first
Saving lives
Our mission is to improve the delivery, coordination, and quality of health care across Arkansas through the state-wide use of health information technology and clinical data exchange. Vision
It’s no secret that Arkansas consistently ranks in the lowest percentiles for most health measurements. But did you know that, according to recent statistics, there are 10-year differences in life spans depending where in the state you live? This is primarily due to the health care disparities that exist between rural and metropolitan areas. Help, however, is on the way. Arkansas is moving forward with a number of health care reform initiatives that will improve health, access to and quality of care, and slow the growth of health care costs. These innovations include:
Payment Improvement Initiative
Health Care Workforce Development
Consumer Engagement and Personal Responsibility
Health Information Technology (HIT) Adoption
These efforts are in addition to the Medicaid Expansion Private Option bills signed in 2013 that will provide private health insurance for up to 250,000 uninsured working Arkansans. SHARE is part of the HIT initiative, which involves transitioning hospitals and clinics from paper health records to electronic health records (EHR), and then securely connecting those EHR systems to SHARE where patient health records are accessible to all participating treating providers. Beyond HIT, SHARE also plays a critical role in all of the Arkansas health reform initiatives by providing the holistic patient health data that drives diagnosis and treatment decisions, and simplifying care coordination as we move from one care giver to the next. SHARE is a powerful tool that will improve the quality of patient care, enhance the coordination of care, and reduce the overall cost of health care in our state. The use of SHARE and the exchange of health information—combined with all of the health care reform initiatives—can improve the overall health of our state. Our vision is a healthier state population and a greatly improved health care system in which care givers and patients have electronic access to more complete health records, and are empowered to make better health decisions with this information.
