Ideally, patients could go to any central Ohio hospital and, with a few taps on a keyboard, staff members could read their medical histories.

Doctors and nurses could quickly find past surgeries, medications, recent X-rays, tests and any drug allergies the patients suffer ? records kept in doctors? offices, clinics and other hospitals.

Having this information allows medical staff members to make better decisions about care and be more efficient by not repeating expensive tests.

Systems that allow this access are called "regional health information organizations," and they are popping up nationwide.

Officials from central Ohio?s four hospital systems are discussing how to create one here.

David P. Blom, chief executive officer at OhioHealth, is leading the local effort. He said the first thing hospitals agreed to was that "health care information should not be proprietary."

"It belongs to the patients and should be used regardless of where they are treat- ed," he said.

Several electronic information exchanges exist across the nation and around Ohio; Blom said no two are alike.

Some share billing information. Some share test results. Some share immunization information.

"It would almost be like you Google someone on the Internet in a safe way," said William D. Hayes, president of the Health Policy Institute of Ohio, a nonprofit research group based in Columbus.

Some information exchanges act as a repository for patient information. Others act as a go-between, locating information, such as an X-ray, and passing it on.

In Cincinnati, a nonprofit agency called HealthBridge was created so hospitals, laboratories and radiology centers can share lab results and tests. It has a $2.5 million annual operating budget.

The agency has plans for doctors to share information with hospitals as well, said Keith Hepp, HealthBridge?s vice president of development.

Hospitals in Cleveland, Akron and Canton plan to begin sharing patient information this year.

"If you come to me and had open heart surgery in such and such place and I can?t get the data, I?d repeat the test," said Dr. Brian Keaton, an emergency medicine physician at Akron?s Summa Health System.

Keaton, who is leading the Northeast Ohio information exchange, said the program was created to improve care, not save money. It will cost as much as $4 million annually and initially be funded by fees from grants, loans and participating hospitals. Hospitals would pay on a sliding scale based on size.

After a couple of years, transaction fees should be the primary source of funding, he said.

Keaton said he hopes insurance companies will notice savings and begin to contribute to the system.

There is another benefit, advocates say ? stopping fraud.

"If patients are using various emergency rooms as an avenue toward getting pain medications, it could catch things like that," said Kelly McGivern, president of the Ohio Association of Health Plans.

Right now, gathering patient information is tedious. Some data is kept electronically, some on paper. Oftentimes, it is kept in different places.

"This has a possible benefit of one point of access and realtime access," said Elizabeth Curtis, director of medical information management at Ohio State University Medical Center.

The ultimate goal is to connect information exchanges across the state and nationwide.

The task force working on the local system includes representatives from Compete Columbus, a group of business leaders working to boost the local economy; the four hospital systems; the Ohio Hospital Association and some physicians.

A Columbus system could start with such electronic records as lab test results and hospital discharge papers.

Blom said it?s too early to say how Columbus? system would work, who will use it and how it would be funded.

It won?t come soon enough for cardiologist Keith Pattison, who has been an advocate for a shared network for years.

"There?s not a day when I?m on call at Doctor?s (Hospital) or Grant (Medical Center) where I don?t have two or three patients ? who have had procedures done at other hospitals in the area that I can?t get," he said.

shoholik@dispatch.com?