By Tony McVeigh, Kentucky Public RadioKentucky’s Medicaid program, which serves almost 800,000 people, is being used to test a secure, electronic medical information exchange system. Six pilot hospitals and one clinic are already participating in the exchange, which eliminates the need for patients to fill out reams of documents on their medical histories. Health and Family Services Secretary Janie Miller says the ultimate goal is to make the system available to all Kentuckians.“The cabinet’s been working to build a system that providers will use to share patient information with Medicaid and with one another. It creates varying levels of connectivity to meet the needs of medical providers who are at different stages of adopting health information technology within their organization," she said.Miller says an almost $5 million federal grant is helping make the Kentucky Health Information Exchange a reality. The money was awarded in 2007 to help improve the efficiency of the state’s Medicaid program.
Rick Howlett was midday host and the host of LPM's weekly talk show, "In Conversation." He was with LPM from 2001-2023 and held many different titles, including Morning Edition host, Assignment Editor and Interim News Director. He died in August 2023. Read a remembrance of Rick here.