Dr. Todd Rowland, Executive Director at HealthLINC HIE, provides an overview of how HIE can help community based physicians. Dr. Rowland addresses the importance of office managers in HIE adoption and tactics to increase adoption of EMR and HIE technologies by rural healthcare providers. Listen to this podcast to learn ways to use data standards to enhance revenue cycles and how to obtain optimal use of federal dollars to obtain meaningful use of EMR and HIE technologies. Dr. Rowland also provides his insight on ingredients to ensure that technology helps providers improve direct patient care and investments that should be made by the private and public sector to ensure that this more widespread. This interview was conducted by Dr. Jack Varga, Physician Informaticist, Veterans Health Administration.

Listen Now

Source:  HIMSS

1: Inland Northwest Health Services (INHS) | Spokane, Wash.
Data sharing across competing facilities sparks better care
INHS provides EMR services to 750 physicians and hosted practice management services in eastern Washington and northern Idaho.

Currently there’s a backlog of 100 physicians waiting to be added into the system for data-sharing benefits, says Mike Smyly, chief business development officer for the Information Resources Management (IRM) division of INHS. “Data sharing has changed the culture of our community from ‘How do I protect the data from my competition’ to ‘how do I share the data with my competitors for better patient care?’ ”

Thirty-eight hospitals are currently linked to INHS’ master patient index (MPI)—via a GE Centricity EMR for physician services and Meditech’s Enterprise Medical Record for hospitals; another six hospitals have recently signed on to participate in the exchange. Meditech’s electronic MPI has been leveraged to integrate patient data among inpatient and ambulatory clinical data, Smyly says.

In addition, INHS provides analysis services for EMR implementation and customization for physicians and hospitals. INHS also has implemented a “community image store” in collaboration with its radiology partner, Inland Imaging, where referring hospitals send images via Inland Imaging’s integrated PACS.

INHS’ hosted EMR services cost a 650-bed hospital 25 percent to 30 percent less than what the hospital would have paid to deploy an EMR itself, Smyly says.

“If you can establish trust in a community … you take away data as a competitive advantage and focus on results,” he says.

2: Norman Regional Health System (NRHS) | Norman, Okla.
An infrastructure for pushing ambulatory data
Getting facilities and federal agencies to exchange ambulatory data is no simple task, but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen. NRHS has 75 physicians connected in the Norman, Okla., region and is looking to expand to federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) in the state, says Brian A. Yeaman, MD, CMIO at NRHS. The exchange is being used to help reconcile medications and problem lists, among other daily operations, he says.

In January 2010, NRHS, comprised of three hospitals, went live with Oklahoma Physician Health Exchange (OPHX), built on eClinicalWorks HIE software, to integrate ambulatory data. To broaden its reach, NRHS, as a part of Greater Oklahoma City Hospital Council, also has joined SMRTNET, a regional health information organization (RHIO) based in Norman. The SMRTNET RHIO currently includes 3 million discrete patient encounters in the network and includes data from more than a dozen Oklahoma hospitals. 

Currently, OPHX—which facilitates electronic referrals and reconciliations—is sustained by monthly subscription fees of $25 per provider.

The SMRTNET/OPHX integration is driven by not duplicating a large number of interfaces: “We have a hub for ambulatory data now, with a lot of bidirectional interfaces,” says Yeaman. “Without strong HIE, we are going to continue to live in silos and we have to move away from that and construct an information network to allow greater communication.”

3: MedVirginia | Richmond, Va.
First HIE to connect with NHIN, VLER
MedVirginia, formed in 2000 by a coalition of Virginia not-for-profit hospitals and physicians, boasts a couple of firsts. In 2009, MedVirginia was the first community-based HIE service provider to harness the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN) framework, to streamline disability determination for veterans. And in December 2010, it became the first community-based HIE to connect to the Virtual Lifetime Electronic Record (VLER), a collaboration between Veterans Affairs (VA), the Department of Defense (DoD) and civilian health systems that connects the health records of the active-duty military personnel and veterans, says Michael Matthews, CEO of MedVirginia, based in Richmond.

Data are stored on a central database and comprise radiology reports, diagnoses, procedures performed, OR notes and discharge summaries. Currently, 14 hospitals are providing data to the exchange, as are two reference labs with about 115 physician practices and 1,100 physicians accessing data through a secure provider portal, he says. 

Since harnessing the NHIN framework, MedVirginia has reduced the disability determination period from 84 days to 46 days and processed more than 5,000 disability determination requests. In some cases, the turn-around time has been shortened to one to two business days, Matthews adds.

“When you talk in terms of [saving money on items like] paperclips, it’s hard to monetize” the benefits of information exchange, he says. However, faster collection of medical evidence does translate into cost savings by reducing the amount of time it takes to receive a payment following service, according to a case study by MedVirginia. The study showed that, as a result of the MedVirginia-NHIN-SSA data exchange, Richmond-based health system Bon Secours realized $2.1 million in payments on uncompensated care cases that the facility might not have collected otherwise, Matthews says.

4: HEALTHeLINK | Buffalo, N.Y.
‘The value is the data’
As a Beacon Community and a RHIO, Western New York Clinical Information Exchange (a.k.a. HEALTHeLINK) has built a repository of 40 million results, with 1.7 million results added to the exchange on a monthly basis.

HEALTHeLINK currently has more than 90 percent of the lab reports and nearly 75 percent of the radiology reports available for the eight counties in its service territory. HEALTHeLINK uses Axolotl Elysium tools to provide clinical messaging and clinical data delivery functions to physicians, says Daniel E.Porreca, executive director. “You’ve got to be careful not to focus solely on the technology,” he says. “It’s for better care. The value is the data.”

Major projects under way at HEALTHeLINK include an initiative to set up an EMR-to-EMR exchange that will package relevant clinical information from primary care providers into a CCD and send it via HEALTHeLINK between disparate EMRs, says Porreca.

HEALTHeLINK went live with the first such exchange between primary care and specialists four months ago and is looking to upload the second EMR from a second vendor for the exchange during the current fiscal quarter, he says.

As a Beacon Community, HEALTHeLINK is putting into place technology such as telemonitoring to create a wider, deeper information base about the diabetic population and to facilitate better communication between patients and providers.

“While we’ve done a lot, we realize we have a long way to go,” says Porreca.

5: Quality Health Network (QHN) | Grand Junction, Colo.
‘We created a medical neighborhood’
QHN was created as a RHIO by a collaboration of Mesa County Independent Physicians Association (IPA), Rocky Mountain Health Plans (RMHP), St. Mary’s Hospital and Community Hospital. The goal was to provide quality care to the 150,000 patients in Mesa County.

QHN went live in 2005; currently about 85 percent of physicians in Mesa County are connected to the system, says Dick Thompson, executive director of QHN. “We created a medical neighborhood so not only are the hospitals and labs connected, but also … surgical centers and home health hospices and pharmacies.”

Services range from results delivery to e-prescribing, electronic referrals, CPOE and web-based population management tools. QHN also offers an “EMR lite” that includes clinical decision support, but does not provide scheduling and billing, says Thompson.

QHN delivers 125,000 lab and radiology results per month to providers as well as tens of thousands of progress notes, e-prescriptions, referrals and other clinical messages. That breadth of data helps to populate a longitudinal patient record, providing aggregate data across QHN’s community. One provider was able to decrease medical record staff by 25 percent to 30 percent because of the connectivity; another eliminated a referral coordinator and replaced that position with a clinician because care coordination is handled electronically, says Thompson.

Sustainability will continue to be a major hurdle that HIEs must clear, but as these five efforts show, funding isn’t the only metric to watch. When it comes to building an HIE that works, one formula for success definitely does not fit all.

Source CMIO.net

The passing of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act of 2009 (HITECH) has resulted in a continued increase in the number of Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) across the United States. The Pennsylvania eHealth Initiative (PAeHI) remains active in its role “to bring together Pennsylvania’s health care and business stakeholders to develop a vision and a plan for the future of health information technology (HIT) and the secure exchange of health information in Pennsylvania”. How to maintain financial sustainability is a major question raised by community, regional, and state-level HIEs. PAeHI’s 2008 White Paper titled “Building a Sustainable Model for Health Information Exchange in Pennsylvania” laid the foundation for financial sustainability discussions and actions. Recognizing its ongoing importance, PAeHI has now completed this second White Paper to further inform Pennsylvania stakeholders about HIE financial sustainability models deployed and contemplated nationally and in Pennsylvania. Key areas addressed within the White Paper include trends and demographics; approaches for thinking about sustainability; prior planning efforts by the Pennsylvania Health Information Exchange (PHIX) and PAeHI; interview findings with leaders from 11 leading national HIEs on their models and experiences; findings from 26 representatives from 13 Pennsylvania stakeholder groups; current Pennsylvania HIT/HIE initiatives; an assessment of opportunities; and a possible go-forward strategy.

Read more on the PAeHI White Paper Project

A patient shows up at the emergency room unconscious and unable to give a history. Another patient arrives at his primary care physician’s office 3 days after an emergency room visit, and the primary doctor has received no information. A specialist sees a third patient for a consultation and receives none of the critical records needed to help her make the consultation efficient and effective. These scenarios and many others like them, unfortunately, are all too commonplace. The consequences of incomplete information at the point-of-care can be inconvenience, inefficiency, increased costs, and adverse, even life-threatening outcomes for patients.

The major reasons for lack of sharing health information include the fragmented nature of the United States healthcare system and the fee-for-service business model, a model that does not include financial support for health information exchange. Further, most health information technology (HIT) programs are not interoperable, that is, they do not speak to each other.

Health information exchange (HIE), in its current definition, is the electronic sharing of health-related information between disparate partners, based on nationally recognized standards for interoperability, privacy, and security. Without sharing, silos of information persist, physicians function with incomplete information, and tests are unnecessarily  repeated. Information-sharing is particularly important for care coordination of care for older with complicated conditions; chronic disease management; natural disaster and biosurveillance response; and care for a mobile military, veteran, and civilian patient population.

Recognizing these obstacles to sharing, the federal government has taken an active role in promoting HIE as a key component of healthcare reform. In this article, we will describe the
current landscape of HIE in the United States, how different parties are trying to expand it, current obstacles to the expansion, and the future possibilities.

THE HITECH ACT AND HIE
In 2004, President Bush set the goal of an interoperable electronic health record (EHR) system for all Americans by 2014 and established the office of the national coordinator for HIT (ONC). Initial progress towards the goal was slow until the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, which included the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act. The HITECH Act funded multiple federal programs to promote the adoption of HIT, particularly EHR systems and HIE at the local, state, and national level.

The basic building block for this national strategy is the EHR, which inputs, processes, and stores digital health information for hospitals and outpatient practices. Health information organizations (HIOs) are the organizations that provide the governance,technology infrastructure, and security to exchange health information. A regional health information organization (RHIO) is simply an HIO that covers a defined geographic area, such as a city, region, state or multi-state area. HIOs have the ability to collect and aggregate health data from multiple organizations and electronically share information with EHRs.

The HITECH Act included a Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement program for eligible professionals who use certified EHRs and demonstrate “meaningful use.” Stage 1 meaningful use included the general objectives of e-prescribing, structured data collection, quality reporting, clinical decision support, patient engagement, security assurance, and HIE. HIE is necessary to provide a hospital discharge summary, electronically exchange key clinical information among providers, report quality measures to Medicare/Medicaid or states, perform medication reconciliation, transmit electronic immunization data to immunization registries, and submit electronic syndromic surveillance data to public health agencies.

Currently, most HIE occurs as part of an existing HIO. HITECH funded a new option for statewide and interstate exchange known as the State Health Information Exchange Cooperative Agreement Program, discussed in a later section.

CONNECTING PRACTICES, HOSPITALS, AND CITIES
Approximately 234 HIOs exist in varying operational stages, according to a 2010 study by eHealth Initiative, a not-for-profit organization that has conducted annual HIO surveys since 2005. Seventy-three HIOs claimed to be operational (exchanging some type of health data), and 18 claimed to be sustainable (no federal funding in the past year, operational status, and receiving revenue equal to or exceeding costs). More than half of the HIOs offered the following core services: clinical messaging (electronic test delivery of lab and radiology results, medication data, outpatient visits, and emergency room visits), EHR connectivity, clinical documentation, and alerts to physicians. Fewer than half of the HIOs survey offered the following newer advanced services: e-prescribing, Web-based EHR-HIE combination, public health reporting, telemedicine, medication reconciliation, emergency room use data, transcription, voice recognition, business analytics/intelligence, value-based reimbursement (pay for performance), credentialing, research, clinical decision support, consumer portal, claims clearing house, care coordination, and picture archiving and communication systems.

HIOs such as HealthBridge, located in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Indiana Health Information Exchange,located in Indianapolis, Indiana, are performing well financially and have the support of the medical community. On the other hand, failures such as the Santa Barbara County Care Data Exchange have dissolved primarily due to lack of perceived value by the healthcare community.

In 2010, the State HIE Cooperative Agreement Program funded (via $548 million) 56 states, eligible territories, and qualified state designated entities. The overall goal was to promote standards based statewide and interstate information sharing to meet meaningful use, particularly where none exists currently. Statewide HIE will need to be interoperable with existing HIOs, significant data providers and users (such as Medicaid), and the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN).

The NHIN is a collection of standards, protocols, and services that enables the secure exchange of health information over the Internet. Instead of being a specific network, it is actually a “network of networks” connecting disparate healthcare organizations, to include HIOs, federal agencies, and integrated networks. The NHIN primarily will provide a means for large civilian and federal health organizations, to include HIOs, to share information securely. As an example, MedVirginia is sharing information with the Social Security Administration via the NHIN to expedite disability determinations.

WHERE’S THE MONEY?

HIE participation for any given healthcare provider is fundamentally a business decision. The expected net benefit to the provider must be positive so that expected benefits exceed expected costs. These benefits can be monetary in nature, accruing through efficiencies in running a practice or a clinic, or through better use of a reimbursement mechanism. They also can be non-monetary, yielding superior health outcomes through better case management while not affecting the bottom line for the business.

Potential models include monthly or annual pricing on a per physician basis (subscription model), pricing on a per-transaction basis, or some combination of the above (for instance, a monthly fee plus per-record usage cost). Approximately half of the operational HIOs charge physicians a user fee as well as an additional fee to create an electronic interface between an EHR and the HIO. Participants must be willing to collaborate, rather than compete, in data exchange and must be willing to pay operating costs. Organizations must have enough participants to create a “network effect” (enough customers to make it worthwhile) and create subsequent economies of scale to be successful.

One of the more immediate benefits for physicians to participate in information exchange would be to comply with meaningful use objectives as part of the Medicare and Medicaid EHR reimbursement program. Very few HIOs can meet all pertinent meaningful use objectives at this time, however.

Participation in successful HIOs likely will mean access to an increasing number of administrative and clinical tools such as business analytics, telemedicine, clinical decision support, centralized credentialing, research opportunities, and a variety of reports.

According to the latest eHealth Initiative survey, many HIOs report reduced staff time spent handling or filing lab and radiology results and handling prescription issues. Another potential benefit would be creating one EHR-HIO interface to receive results, as opposed to multiple EHR interfaces to outside labs,hospitals, and imaging centers.

NUMEROUS TECHNICAL AND FINANCIAL OBSTACLES
Physicians may object to any change in workflow, user fees, and EHR interface charges to participate in HIE. They may believe that the benefits accrue more to others, such as payers and state and federal governments.

The most commonly reported obstacle for HIE is a long-term sustainable business plan that does not depend on federal funding. HIOs must have the trust of multiple partners that traditionally have been competitors in the market place. HIOs must provide services that have perceived value to a wide audience, such as clinicians, hospital executives, and practice managers. The lack of widely proven return on investment may cause some clinicians to choose faxes and mail over electronic sharing.

HIE also is impeded by a lack of a universal patient identifier that would greatly improve retrieval of the correct patient record. Another administrative obstacle for all HIT initiatives is privacy and security. HIOs will store voluminous data for thousands of patients that can be breached without adequate protection. Further, depending on the state, patients will need to sign an opt-in or opt-out agreement to allow record sharing. HIE participation could raise new legal issues regarding responsibility for reviewing all pertinent information on a patient.

For electronic record-sharing to take place, data standards need to be developed and adopted. The current document standard is known as a continuity of care record or continuity of care document. Both are XML-derived patient summaries that are similar to a problem summary list but are in a format that can be both generated and read by most EHR systems.

ALTERNATIVES ARISE
Although the government approach currently favors HIOs and statewide health exchanges, other models have been proposed. Some favor an approach called health record banking. This approach is consumercentric and particularly appeals to privacy advocates. Each consumer (patient) would directly control who can access his or her account. Patients would authorize their providers to “deposit” and “withdraw” information from their secure online personal health information. It has even been suggested that the consumer would bear the cost of a nominal subscription fee. To date, however, patients have shown little inclination to adopt electronic personal health records, even though several systems are now available for free from organizations such as Google and Microsoft as well as health insurers.

Another proposed option is to use a nationwide electronic messaging system that already exists, such as Surescripts. Surescripts is the primary messaging system between physicians and pharmacies used in this country for the transmission of electronic prescriptions. Surescripts proposes becoming a health information service provider that offers the ability to exchange clinical messages and patient encounters over a standards-based network between providers. The company plans to offer this service in 2011 and support it by a subscription fee.

Additionally, the government recently has proposed a simpler alternative to HIOs called the DIRECT Project. In this option, which could be available as early as 2011, physicians will be able to push encrypted clinical messages between healthcare partners. Pilot tests will be under way in early 2011, and further details are forthcoming.

THE FUTURE OF HIE

Some see the role of the HIO as an “infomediary” or information-hosting organization that reuses data for more than clinical medicine, such as public health and research purposes. Several HIE vendors are planning to add Web-based EHRs, practice management systems, and business analytics to allow for fully integrated clinical and financial functions. A few HIOs are offering services such as transcription, credentialing, reporting (public health, quality and pay for performance), and patient access to health data through a portal and personal health records. In spite of approximately a dozen successful HIOs, HIOs remain expensive and complex.

Further, the viability of the new State HIE Cooperative Agreement Program is uncertain. States will be required to charge for HIE use, and it is unknown how this requirement will be viewed by data providers and users.

If you haven’t already done so, you will need to make a business decision whether to purchase a certified EHR to receive federal government reimbursement. As part of that decision and as an aid to achieving meaningful use, you also should determine how you will share medical information in the future. Ascertain whether you can use an existing HIO, a new statewide HIE, or a simpler solution such as the DIRECT project or the SureScripts network.

The degree of uncertainty regarding both EHRs and HIE is substantial, but so are the potential benefits to you and your patients. Mature and successful HIE is a rarity today but likely will be standard operating procedure in the foreseeable future.

2010 Advanstar Communications Inc..

Source:  Modern Medicine.com
View Full Article: http://www.modernmedicine.com/modernmedicine/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=700603&pageID=1&sk=&date=

QHN researches, acquires, and deploys cost-effective shared IT products and services that are essential to the success of western Colorado’s high performing healthcare communities. Currently, QHN supports more than 75% of medical providers in Mesa County and surrounding areas by connecting them to the HIE system. The numerous community participants include hospitals, physicians, surgical centers, emergency departments, pharmacies, extended care facilities, home health services, public health, hospices, and many others. More than 550 physicians currently use the system to help improve their care of patients. QHN helps facilitate the delivery of the right medical data to the right place at the right time with the goal of reducing costs, increasing efficiency and improving patient outcomes. QHN’s HIE has been recognized as a national leader and is a member of the Colorado Beacon Consortium.

QHN’s quality improvement efforts, which are focused on improving care transitions and care coordination within and between medical neighborhoods, is making a difference for all patients served by area providers. With the IT support of QHN, “patients are now being served by multiple providers, in multiple health care settings with confidence,” notes Amy Davis, MD, Medical Director of the Marillac Clinic, which provides medical services to low-income populations in Mesa County.

Beyond its original base in Grand Junction, QHN services have expanded successfully over the past year to support and incorporate other western Colorado medical communities in Montrose, Delta, Gunnison and Aspen. Initial results show that the adoption of QHN’s HIE tools is growing at a fast pace in order to securely share clinical information. This expansion plan for western Colorado has been facilitated by funding from area providers and from the generous support of the Colorado Health Foundation. Their support validates the vision of QHN’s founders and improves the ability of area physicians to deliver high quality care.

“QHN delivers an efficient, reliable and low cost clinical exchange solution for hospitals and doctors. Our community is pleased to be an early adopter of this quality improvement initiative,” said David Ressler, CEO of Aspen Valley Hospital (AVH). “We see a high value in providing our area physicians with timely access to complete patient information at the point of care. It helps them better serve their patients.” Similarly, David Hample, CEO of Montrose Memorial Hospital (MMH) said, “We recognize that patients benefit from the timely exchange of clinical information among all health care providers in our regional area. We want to improve patient satisfaction and reduce costs: and, our connection to the QHN HIE helps us do that.”

Using Axolotl’s Elysium Exchange, QHN will continue to expand into new medical neighborhoods to enhance electronic and technological capabilities, maintain exceptional privacy and security standards, and help providers and patients work together to improve outcomes and reduce costs. “A central tenet of QHN’s growth and high rate of adoption is an abiding respect for local leadership coupled with the provision of high quality support and guidance from QHN,” emphasized Jane Foster, QHN Clinical Director.

QHN is one of four local organizations comprising the Colorado Beacon Consortium. The consortium is one of 17 health IT pilot communities receiving grants, funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) to serve as a national model for the broad use of healthcare IT. “The Colorado Beacon Consortium’s mission is to optimize the health and quality of life for all members of the community through the meaningful use of health information technology, and improve the cost-effectiveness and quality of their health care regardless of personal means or coverage status,” said Dick Thompson, CEO of QHN.

Since its inception, QHN’s live operations have delivered nearly 7 million patient clinical results to regional medical providers. The network supports more than 120,000 server requests monthly from greater than 130 participating organizations. In addition, QHN provides HIPAA compliant transfer of over 500,000 electronic prescriptions to pharmacies in western Colorado on an annual basis. Their services are anticipated to grow exponentially over the next few years.

 December 01, 2010

For further Quality Health Network information contact:

Dick Thompson, CEO 970-248-0033
Christina Beck, Marketing & Communications 720-289-2565

View Source

Education session 20, “HIE Connectivity Using the NHIN: Lessons from the SSA, C-HIEP and NHIN Projects,” Thursday at 11:30 AM-12:30 PM CST highlights real-world interoperability projects that have successfully enabled entities to exchange patient data.

Todd Rowland, MD, executive director of HealthLINC, and Rodney Cain, chief technology architect of HealthBridge, will discuss their respective HIE projects, which include collaborating with the Social Security Administration and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, among other federal and private-sector partners.

The projects range from the NHIN Prototype Architecture, CMS’ CARE Health Information Exchange Project (C-HIEP) and SSA’s electronic disability determination.

Leaders of HealthLINC, a community-based organization serving South Central Indiana, applied for NHIN grants in 2008 as a way to achieve enhanced interoperability, according to Rowland. HealthLINC partnered with HealthBridge on each phase of the NHIN work it participated in, he said.

“The ongoing work with NHIN and other interconnecting projects clearly demonstrates the power of interoperability,” Rowland said. He pointed out that enhanced interoperability will enable providers to integrate and reuse clinical information.

In addition, technology companies can contribute to significantly improving patient safety by developing applications and services that deliver enhanced interoperability.

“NHIN has become an essential method for federal agencies like CMS, SSA, DOD (Department of Defense) and VA (Veterans Affairs) to connect to each other and with the private sector,” he said. “We are likely to see a significant growth in reporting requirements with federal agencies as healthcare reform unfolds, so all providers will need to have this capacity.”

November 03, 2010 | Patty Enrado, Special Projects Editor

Source:  Healthcare ITNews

Why is that important? It gives caregivers the information they need at the time they need it to improve patient outcomes.

“The single most important thing,” said Andrew VanZee, state health IT director, “is to provide information at the point of care.”

Imagine your aging parent falls ill while visiting you from another part of the state. Then think about taking this loved one to your local ER knowing physicians there can call up a medical record and learn about your parent’s chronic conditions, medications or recent surgeries. Or, what if you were that ER doctor; how helpful would the information be in your treatment plan?

Devising a roadmap
Our state has a strategic roadmap for health information technology projects and electronic connectivity, as well as funding to move us down that road over the next five years. VanZee detailed those plans at a CME session offered during the ISMA convention last month.

Strategies encompass the five pillars shown in the diagram, working with Indiana’s current health information exchanges: HealthBridge, HealthLINC, MedWeb, MHIN (Michiana Health Information Exchange) and IHIE or Indiana Health Information Exchange.

Connectivity goals call for helping an additional 30 rural/critical access hospitals to exchange information, as well as 100 federal qualified health centers and rural health clinics, and 50 lab and radiology facilities. Most existing connectivity is in large metropolitan areas and along major highways.

Already efforts are underway to complete data mapping and normalization that will provide preferred standards for data elements. “That is so the various information exchanges around the state can talk to each other,” explained Van Zee.

The standards will cover patient identification, radiology and lab results, and clinical documents.

Privacy and security are part of the plan, too. Funding already granted will help with policy development, gap analyses and planning to address any gaps discovered in the safeguarding of information.

“The goal is to improve the process to help information flow both ways,” VanZee explained. For example, physician offices will send text or exam results to hospitals, as well as receive information from those hospitals.

Read more on the Indiana Health IT website.

View Full ISMA e-Report  
 10/20/2010

Dayton, OH – The Greater Dayton Area Hospital Association (GDAHA) today announced its partnership with HealthBridge, a not-for-profit health information exchange located in Cincinnati, to establish health information exchange services for the Greater Dayton region. This partnership will create one of the nation’s largest secure health information networks connecting hospitals and physicians in Dayton and Cincinnati. Once the Dayton-Cincinnati health information exchange is complete, more than 50 hospitals and 7,500 physicians will be connected across Southwest, Ohio.

“Hospitals in the Dayton region have been innovators and leaders in the national movement to use electronic health information in our community,”   said Bryan Bucklew, President and CEO of GDAHA.  “They are now expanding their ability to share electronic information through secure channels with providers. These connections will improve the quality of care available to patients in our community.” 

The use of cutting edge technology among hospitals in the Dayton region is a continuation of the collaboration on health information technology that began with the adoption of Epic, an electronic medical records system, by Premier Health Partners, the Kettering Health Network, and The Children’s Medical Center of Dayton.  

Electronic medical records and the connection provided by the Dayton health information exchange will transmit a patient’s information through secure networks to improve the quality of care and reduce cost by eliminating duplicative services. A patient’s medical history will be readily available to doctors and nurses in the hospital or the physician’s office.  

Too often physicians do not have the most current information from other providers when they see a patient. The ability of a patient’s health information to follow the patient electronically from hospital to doctor’s office to lab and back will result in better quality of care and lower costs. 

“Technology and connectivity are fundamental to advancing the quality and efficiency of healthcare,” said Keith Hepp, Vice President of Business Development at HealthBridge. “We are delighted to work with GDAHA and the Dayton provider community to rapidly expand the ability to connect and share health information securely to improve patient care.”

Connectivity through HealthBridge will start with nine hospitals that are part of Premier Health Partners and the Kettering Health Network.  By the end of 2011, 80 percent of GDAHA hospitals, CompuNet Clinical Labs, and Public Health – Dayton and Montgomery County will be connected to the Dayton health information exchange. 80 percent of area physicians will be connected by the end of 2012. 

The importance of electronic medical records is  underscored by GDAHA’s commitment to help the Dayton region’s provider community prepare for the “meaningful use” of health information technology.  As part of the economic stimulus legislation passed in 2009, meaningful use means health care providers must demonstrate a wide set of electronic capabilities to qualify for thousands of dollars in incentive payments. GDAHA will work with physicians to ensure that they receive the financial and technical assistance to achieve the meaningful use of health information technology through the Greater Dayton Area Health Information Network Regional Extension Center. 

“We’re very proud to be working with a pioneer in health information exchange like HealthBridge,” said Bryan Bucklew.  “The proximity and patient movement between the Dayton and Cincinnati communities makes working with HealthBridge a natural fit for our provider community.”

The Greater Dayton Area Hospital Association (GDAHA) is a member-service organization representing 23 hospitals and health systems in the Dayton region.  GDAHA collaborates with its members to improve the delivery of healthcare services in Auglaize, Butler, Darke, Champaign, Clark, Greene, Miami, Montgomery, Preble, Shelby, and Warren Counties in West Central Ohio.   GDAHA offers value-added services that help members improve operating efficiency and maintain quality standards.

 About HealthBridge

Since its founding in 1997 as a non-profit community-based organization, HealthBridge has grown to become one of the largest, most advanced and financially successful health information exchange organizations in the United States. Each month roughly 3 million clinical lab tests, radiology reports, discharge summaries and other health information are transmitted electronically to more than 5,500 authorized physicians through HealthBridge’s secure technology network, more than nearly any other collaborative health information organization in the country. Dedicated to helping providers and communities achieve meaningful use of health information technology, HealthBridge also operates the Tri-State Regional Extension Center and the Collaborating Communities Network of health information exchange organizations. HealthBridge has been recognized in many publications for its innovative practices including the Wall Street Journal, eHealth Initiative, and HIMSS, just to name a few.  For more information about HealthBridge, see www.healthbridge.org.