South Dakota Health Link 101: Back to the Basics

Exchanging Information. Changing Lives.

South Dakota Health Link (SDHL) is a multi-state Health Information Exchange that delivers critical health information at the point of care. SDHL allows providers to see clinical information about their patient from across the entire SDHL network, allowing clinical information to follow the patient. Having access to this information allows the care provider to have the most up-to-date picture of their patient’s care including major health conditions, allergies, medications, diagnostic results, and filled medication information. SDHL also provides access in real time to valuable alerts for Emergency Department or Inpatient admissions allowing providers to engage with their patients in a more timely and effective manner.

South Dakota Health Link Mission and Goals.

Mission: Foster the sharing of information through a secure platform to improve the quality, safety, and efficiency of care provided to citizens.

Goals

• To improve care by reducing medical errors associated with inaccurate and incomplete information to healthcare providers.
• To reduce the cost of exchanging information among healthcare providers by increasing the use of electronic methods of sharing.
• To improve communication among healthcare providers and patients in order to provide the right care at the right time based on the best available information.
• To reduce the number of duplicate tests to give specialists a more comprehensive review of the patient upon referral, and to expedite the reporting of opinions between specialists and referring physicians.
• To improve efficiency and value of electronic health records and to assist those physicians without an EHR to better organize and retrieve test results.

For more information and to learn how to join please call 605.800.1678 or send us an email.