Think fast: Do you remember all the tests you’ve had done in the past three years, and their results? Your medication changes? Your doctor and hospital visits?

If you’ve suffered an illness or health crisis recently, there are likely far too many pieces of such information to keep track. HEALTHeLINK, a new advance in medical information technology — developed right here in Western New York — can help.

It is improving patient care and communication between physicians, hospitals, and providers with a secure online database of clinical information. A doctor’s ability to access a patient’s medical data isn’t just a convenience; it could save an individual from serious harm.

HEALTHeLINK executive director Dan Porreca says the program is a byproduct of a collaboration that began in WNY in 2001 between insurance providers and hospitals in an effort to effectively transmit electronic data. The result was an organization called HEALTHeNET.

“It was wildly successful,” says Porreca. “Then in 2005, the seven entities that started HEALTHeNET — BlueCross BlueShield of Western New York, the Catholic Health System, Erie County Medical Center, Independent Health, Kaleida Health, Roswell Park Cancer Institute and Univera Healthcare, along with the Health Care Efficiency and Affordability Law for New Yorkers Capital Grant Program (HEAL NY) —said, ‘Maybe we should think about extending this collaboration from the administrative to the clinical side.’

“It made sense for the hospitals, it made sense for the physicians, but most of all it made sense for the patients. Really, what it’s about is getting the clinical data about a patient to the doctors so they can better treat their patients.”

Before HEALTHeLINK, physician Bonnie Sunday, explains, “I would be asking the patient, ‘Have you seen any specialists? Have you had any tests done elsewhere?’ I have a lot of elderly patients, and they often have multiple specialists involved in their care. We need to look at their tests results, find out what the doctor ordered, find out about any medication changes.

“If we don’t have that information, it’s a lot to expect a patient to know. We used to have to get on the phone and call around either to the specialists or different radiology centers and ask, ‘Did this patient have this test done, and if so could you send a report?’”

Now, says Sunday, “We log onto HEALTHeLINK, go into that patient’s page and it’ll tell us right then and there if we have consent to view it. If we do, we can see lab results and X-rays and do a medication query back to 2008.

“It’s great — just a couple clicks of the button and those test results come right from the patient’s chart into my electronic medical record so I can view it.”

Sunday says she’s already experienced several examples of HEALTHeLINK saving a patient from potential harm. “I had a patient come see me who had seen her gynecologist and I asked if she had had a pap smear done,” she explains. “She had, so I asked how it was, and she said, ‘I don’t know; I didn’t hear anything so it must be okay.’”

With a quick look at the patient’s page, Sunday learned that the results were in fact abnormal. She called the patient’s gynecologist immediately to alert the office to the miscommunication.

As Sunday puts it, “The patients benefit so much from having this easy accessibility of clinical data to the physicians who are providing care, at the time that they’re providing care.”

Both Porreca and Sunday are confident that HEALTHeLINK will soon be the standard in private practices and hospitals. It operates in all eight counties of Western New York and now has more than 300,000 consenting members.

Porreca says consenting patients do have the option to choose which physicians can access their informatio. For example, if your neighbor is a physician, you can selectively limit his or her ability to view your data for the sake of privacy.

To patients concerned about sharing their health information, Sunday compares HEALTHeLINK to using an ATM.

“Who would use a bank and not an ATM?” sheasks. “They have all your financial information online, but there are safeguards in place, and that’s why people feel comfortable doing it. It is amazingly secure; they do audits all the time to keep track of who is accessing information.”

Perhaps the most exciting aspect of HEALTHeLINK’s success is the fact that it was developed here in Western New York. “This is a homegrown collaboration between all the major players in this area to try to improve the health of the population as a whole and help patients on an individual level,” Porreca says. “[Now] we’re working on a personal health record where patients can view their information online.

“We’ve been working on the backbone, helping clinicians treat patients, and now we’re on the next step: bringing patients into the fold. We realize that in order for us to move the dial on health care, patients need to be involved in their own care.”

For more information, visit getlinkedwny.com or wnyhealthelink.com.