​Health Information Exchange for Providers

The Pennsylvania eHealth Partnership is responsible, under Act 76 of 2016, for the creation and maintenance of Pennsylvania's secure health information exchange, known as the PA Patient & Provider Network, or P3N.

How Does P3N Work?

• How does P3N work to improve care for patients? — PDF

For you as a health care provider, the P3N improves and coordinates patient care by helping you to find your patients' medical records—in real time—anywhere on the P3N network. For example, imagine you work in an Erie emergency room and are treating a patient following an accident, but the patient's family doctor is in Altoona. If your hospital and the remote family doctor are connected to the P3N through a certified regional network, called a health information organization, or HIO, you can request the patient's medical records from that doctor. This could prevent a dangerous drug interaction or the deadly administration of a drug to which your patient is allergic. Patients and providers benefit from these connections through reduced redundancy of tests, better coordination of care, improved patient safety, and lower costs.

The P3N exchanges data among five P3N Certified HIOs across Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC). Although specific clinical documents data will differ per participating HIO and their members, data in response to a P3N query generally includes allergies, clinical documents, diagnoses, inpatient emergency department, outpatient emergency department, immunizations, lab results, medications, pathology reports, patient demographics, problems, procedures, radiology reports.

Admission Discharge Transfer (ADT) Messages

The P3N operates a statewide alerting service using real-time admission discharge transfer (ADT) messages from around 150 acute care hospital emergency department and inpatient encounters.  The Find an ADT Facility link above will list the PA facilities that participate with a certified P3N HIO and send ADTs to the P3N.  When a patient is receiving care in one HIO and they have a clinical history with another HIO, the P3N ADT Service forwards those related ADTs to the patient's home HIO so that their home HIO can alert that patient's care team of the encounter. In 2022, the P3N ADT Service welcomed the Delaware Health Information Network (DHIN) to support improved care coordination when Delaware residents are receiving care in Pennsylvania and when Pennsylvania residents are receiving care in Delaware.  In 2023, the P3N ADT Service welcomed the Chesapeake Regional Information System for our Patients (CRISP).  CRISP sends ADTs for PA residents who receive care in, Maryland, West Virginia, the District of Columbia, Connecticut, and Alaska to support improved care coordination.  The P3N sends ADTs to CRISP when residents of their states/territories receive care in Pennsylvania.