Expansion of EMR program for California migrant workers

The initiative hopes to help doctors provide better care to a population that is difficult to reach.

By Tyler chin, AMNews staff. April 3, 2006.

A program enabling physicians to electronically access the health records of migrant workers who stream through California's wine country every fall is expanding its geographical reach to other parts of the state.

Under the initiative called Mi Via, Spanish for "my way," migrant workers who sign up for the free service will have their medical history, including medications, allergies and x-rays, stored online.

Any doctor in the country, even those outside the West Coast region the project is concentrating on, can access that information as long as the worker gives his or her user ID and password to the physician, said Heidi Stovall, a principal at Access Strategies Inc., a Sonoma, Calif., health care technology company that helped organize the project.

Both doctors and patients can enter information into the record but cannot change each other's entries, she said. Participating migrants will receive a laminated identification card with their name, photograph, address, medical condition, emergency contact and name of their physician, if they have one. The card also includes the address of the secure Web site where their information is stored. Workers also will get an e-mail address they can use to communicate with their physician, and vice versa.