The

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

EKG Electrocardiography is the process of producing an electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG), a recording of the heart's electrical activity through repeated cardiac cycles. It is an electrogram of the heart which is a graph of voltage versus time of t ...

Repository, Inc is a non profit

corporation A corporation or body corporate is an individual or a group of people, such as an association or company, that has been authorized by the State (polity), state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law as ...

established in 2005 by a concerned group of volunteer physicians, patients, lawyers, lawmakers and internet professionals. COEKG is an independent project supervised by the

Colorado Medical Society The Colorado Medical Society (CMS) is the largest group of organized physicians in Colorado. This nonprofit organization is composed of physicians, residents and medical students. It was founded in 1871 to promote the art and science of medicine an ...

to provide unbiased, nonprofit oversight and guidance for the development of a secure electrocardiography exchange service for critical patients presenting to Colorado's Emergency Departments and Community Health Clinics. COEKG's prototype aims to facilitate advanced connectivity between healthcare entities. COEKG advocates expect their experience will assist in the standardization of more general

electronic medical records An electronic health record (EHR) is the systematized collection of electronically stored patient and population health information in a digital format. These records can be shared across different health care settings. Records are shared thro ...

(EMR) data exchange. COEKG implements a subset of the

Continuity of Care Record Continuity or continuous may refer to: Mathematics * Continuity (mathematics), the opposing concept to discreteness; common examples include ** Continuous probability distribution or random variable in probability and statistics ** Continuous g ...

(CCR) messaging protocol. When fully connected health care consumers and providers will be able to securely and reliably access point-of-care clinical information. Many providers and patients advocate rapid development of EMR interconnectivity, and they believe COEKG efforts should expand to the entire health record. Critics denounce the idea for fear that privacy protection will never reach an acceptable level. Medical records and associated identifying demographic data is especially sensitive and private information. Any attempt to allow

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

transfer of medical records must comply with

HIPAA The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA or the Kennedy– Kassebaum Act) is a United States Act of Congress enacted by the 104th United States Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton on August 21, ...

regulations. The

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA or the Ted Kennedy, Kennedy–Nancy Kassebaum, Kassebaum Act) is a United States Act of Congress enacted by the 104th United States Congress and signed into law by President ...

of 1996 affects every organization that transmits medical and health records.

External links

COEKGMedical Records Institute - CCRCenter for Health Information Technology (CHiT)
{{authority control Health informatics and eHealth associations Standards organizations in the United States Medical and health organizations based in Colorado