County sheriffs are legally responsible for the health of inmates in their custody. The requirement poses unique challenges to county sheriffs. The capability for providing health care is as varied as the 87 Minnesota counties. County jails in Minnesota reflect this diversity, encompassing a huge range of size and complexity with varying abilities to provide health care services.

Very often, nothing is known about an inmate’s health when they enter a jail. For example an intoxicated person being brought into jail may not be able to tell the jailers if they have a disease or they may not even be aware they have a disease. This poses a health risk to everyone with whom they come in contact at the jail and in the criminal justice system. Additionally, the transient nature of many inmates increases the challenge of obtaining health information because inmates often face great challenges in obtaining regular healthcare and establishing what is commonly called a healthcare home, which would allow them to establish a record of their health over time.

Minnesota counties need a statewide jail health information system to gather and exchange health information on inmates. Therefore, this project proposes a software solution for sharing jail health information among all Minnesota counties. It is an interim, short term solution that is achievable because it proposes only a few changes to existing information systems. Importantly, it introduces the concept of an aggregate electronic health record for inmates, for the first time in Minnesota. It also addresses data privacy and permitted disclosure issues, allowing county sheriffs and county attorneys to overcome these issues and move toward an interoperable electronic health record among counties and the Minnesota Department of Corrections (DOC).