The federal government recently gave the District of Columbia a $15.4 million grant to improve health information technology in the District. The money will go toward job training for health care professionals and updating patient medical records to an electronic format.

Converting the records to an electronic format would allow health care providers in D.C., Maryland and Virginia to access any patient’s medical records and would fill a current hole in the nation’s health care system.

The D.C. Department of Health Care Finance said in its press release that the plan’s main purpose is to create an information system available throughout all of D.C.

“The District’s project `Connecting the Capitol Region: The District of Columbia’s Health Information Exchange’ is a collaboration between DHCF and the Department of Health to leverage current efforts to establish a seamless District-wide integrated interoperable Health Information Exchange,” the press release said.

Jim Focht of DHCF said the eventual goal of the initiative is to develop an operational plan that includes architecture for a national database of medical records.

“Our first priority, though, is hooking up the District to itself,” he said. “Long term, a patient’s medical records should be accessible essentially wherever he is in the nation, and [the program’s] going there eventually.”

Focht explained that the infrastructure for this national database is still being developed, and said that the DHCF is still in the planning stage of the project.

When asked about how the initiative would affect patients who are not residents of the D.C. Metro area, such as students and tourists, Focht said that every patient who is brought into an area health care facility would have an electronic medical record, regardless of their hometown. He added that non-residents should not yet expect their records to follow them home, however, as this is still a long-term goal of the project.

Not all of the health care providers in the area would need to make the switch. Georgetown University’s Student Health Center already uses electronic files, according to Dr. James Marsh, director of the Student Health Center.

“For about a year and a half the Student Health Center has been using an electronic medical record system as part of Georgetown University – Medstar Hospital’s outpatient clinic operations. Overall there has been a very positive effect on our clinic,” Dr. Marsh said.

Under the new initiative, the Student Health Center would be able to exchange medical records with other hospitals in the area.”