HIE Rundown – 2-16-21

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Posted By: Roberta Mullin February 16, 2021

Health Information Exchange (HIE) is happening every minute of every day. Your personal health information is moving and being viewed to improve the quality of your healthcare and lower the costs. The job will not be complete until all health records are digital and interoperable. Here’s what’s happening to make that reality.

Listen

From Healthcare APPtitude, guest moderator Tom Testa moderates a panel with MobileSmith Health’s CTO Greg Jones, Senior Software Engineer Rachael Serur and Senior Android Developer Chris Cook. The team takes a deep dive into understanding the ins and outs of FHIR, and how it has sparked healthcare’s renewed commitment to interoperability for app developers.

News and Noted

L.A. Care Partners with LANES for California Health Information Exchange Onboarding Program
L.A. Care Health Plan (@LACareHealth) is pleased to announce it is partnering with the Los Angeles Network of Enhanced Services (LANES) (@LANES_HIE), the regional health information exchange (HIE) for Los Angeles County, to help enroll Medi-Cal and Cal MediConnect outpatient practices into the California Health Information Exchange Onboarding Program (Cal-HOP).

Florida Provides Secure Access to Health Records During Public Health Emergencies and Disasters Through PULSE Enterprise
Audacious Inquiry (Ai) (@A_INQ), an industry leader in connected care, has contracted with the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) (@AHCA_FL) to deploy the Patient Unified Lookup System for Emergencies™ (PULSE) Enterprise platform in Florida. The State of Florida has adopted this technology to provide immediate public health assistance around COVID-19 and to prepare for the 2021 hurricane season. PULSE Enterprise is branded in Florida as the Emergency Patient Look-Up System or E-PLUS.

careMESH and CRISP DC Partner to Enhance D.C.’s Healthcare Provider Directory in Project’s Second Phase
careMESH (@careMESHinc), a healthcare communications platform that enables hospitals and clinicians to securely notify and share patient data with all physicians across the United States, announced it is implementing phase two of the D.C. Provider Directory in partnership with the District’s Health Information Exchange, CRISP DC (@CRISPhealth). The enhancements will help to address many stakeholders’ current gaps in care coordination and are available for all users of the HIE.

8 Healthcare Organizations Join Forces to Launch Info Blocking Resource Center
With the deadline for complying with federal information blocking regulations quickly approaching, physicians and other healthcare providers are getting assistance from eight leading healthcare organizations. Starting February 5th, the Information Blocking Resource Center will be live and will highlight tools and resources to educate and help prepare healthcare professionals for the April 5 information blocking applicability date. Read the press release from CHiME (@CIOCHIME).

Six Health Information Exchange Organizations Across the U.S. Form New Consortium
A group of national leaders in health information exchange (HIE) announced their formation of the Consortium for State and Regional Interoperability (CSRI). The vision of this organization is to see individual and population health improve nationwide through robust electronic health data interoperability. Read the press release.

VirtualHealth Partners with Sandata Technologies to Reimagine Community-Based Healthcare Delivery
VirtualHealth (@VirtualHealth_), provider of HELIOS®, a SaaS care management platform and Sandata Technologies (@Sandata_Tech), a national provider of home care technology solutions announced a new partnership to enhance the care experience for Medicaid and Medicare populations across the country.

Health Gorilla Contributes 3 Million COVID-19 Test Results to Carequality
Health Gorilla (@healthgorilla), a provider of clinical data APIs, announced it has made over 3 million COVID-19 test results available for retrieval via Carequality (@CarequalityNet), making test results easily available to the patient’s entire care team. More than 600,000 providers and 2,800 hospitals across the country can now retrieve these test results from within their EMR, informing patient care and fostering better care coordination.

Onyx, AMA Innovations to Rethink Links to Community-Based Organizations
Onyx Technology LLC and AMA Innovations Inc., a technology development subsidiary of the American Medical Association (@AmerMedicalAssn), announced a collaboration to build connections between health care providers and social services organizations. The intent is to support holistic health and social care by improving links between health care providers and social care networks. The companies will combine their technical expertise to deliver a powerful, HL7® FHIR®-based interoperability solution in response to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Administration for Community Living’s (ACL) Innovative Technology Solutions for Social Care Referrals Challenge.

VirtualHealth Partners with Prealize on Data-Driven Care Management
Prealize Health (@PrealizeHealth), an artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled predictive analytics company, announced a new partnership with VirtualHealth (@VirtualHealth_), provider of HELIOS®, the leading SaaS care management platform. The two companies will integrate Prealize’s actionable healthcare insights into VirtualHealth’s HELIOS care management platform, bringing next generation analytics into the workflows that power care management and coordination.

To Read

Pandemic spotlights utility of LANES HIE contributions to population health and reduced costs – By Ali Modaressi, CEO of the Los Angeles Network for Enhanced Services (LANES) (@LANES_HIE) – While the COVID-19 pandemic has shown us all the fragility of life, the disease also has indisputably revealed shortcomings in our U.S. health system. Our frontline healthcare providers, though an extraordinary testament to resiliency, are greatly in need of a better, more streamlined health information technology infrastructure to care for all patients, today and tomorrow.

HIMSS

Events

WEDI

Interoperability Institute

Expanding eConsent: Advance Care Planning in the 21st Century
When: Wednesday, February 24, 2021 – Virtual Conference
Time: 10:00 am – 5:00 pm ET
Register for this event.

Mark your calendars and join the Interoperability Institute (IOI), Object Management Group® (OMG®), BPM+ Health, and Point of Care Partners (POCP) for a free-to-attend, full-day virtual conference as we bring experts together to discuss the challenges of Advance Care Planning (ACP) and eConsent. Additionally, this interactive conference will provide an opportunity to join and give input on the formation of a multi-stakeholder Collaborative.

They look forward to bringing together a core-community – attendees from the conference, along with leading organizations – to form the Collaborative’s Steering Committee. From the Committee, workgroups will address specific use cases, with the initial use case being the design, optimization, and implementation of an ACP workflow. The goal will be to implement this workflow with a participating provider organization. This is an open Collaborative, and its work products will be shared with organizations worldwide that could benefit from their use.

The conference agenda will include a “Lightning Round” consisting of 5-minute presentations of case studies and solutions, and guest presenters will represent care providers, payers, ACP service providers, technology vendors and healthcare consumers. We are excited to present current approaches and solutions, and get thought-leaders involved in helping form solutions and action steps.

Nation HIPAA Summit

The Virtual 30th National HIPAA Summit – Virtual Online Video Live And Archived
When: March 22-25, 2021
Register for this event.

Information privacy and security have gone from seeming afterthoughts for many to front-page news that have grabbed the attention of the public and C-suites alike. Health information privacy and security is no exception. Government-led interoperability efforts seek to unleash the power of electronic health information, raising significant concerns about the limitations of HIPAA and potential loss of privacy and security of the information. The country tries to tackle a devastating opioid epidemic, shining a spotlight on the role that privacy of substance use disorder information should play in the epidemic. Health care sector and tech companies unite on projects to advance artificial intelligence, requiring the application of decades-old privacy laws to ventures that once seemed like science fiction.

The HIPAA Summit is the place to go to stay on top of all of this and more. You will receive practical information to improve compliance with HIPAA and other privacy and security laws governing health information. The HIPAA Summit will bring together current and former regulators from the Office for Civil Rights, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Federal Trade Commission, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. You will hear from thought leaders and practitioners at some of the nation’s top health care systems and health plans. The HIPAA Summit will include sessions on HIPAA enforcement initiatives, new cyber security threats, opportunities to hear privacy and security officers share best practices, and lessons on what challenges are to come and how to tackle them.

Organizations

PATIENT ID NOW

Patient ID Now is a coalition of healthcare organizations representing a wide range of healthcare stakeholders committed to advancing through legislation and regulations a nationwide strategy to address patient identification. Read more about the coalition.

  • Patient Matching: An Essential Tool in the Era of COVID-19
    Free Recording

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of ensuring patients are accurately matched to their medical records, yet the problem of patient misidentification persists, endangering patient safety, and the public health response. Listen to the newly formed Patient ID Now Coalition during a virtual hill briefing with health leaders on July 7. They dive into the implications of patient matching and identification during the pandemic.

Patient ID Now Coalition Pleased Congress is Addressing Patient Misidentification
Patient ID Now, a coalition of leading healthcare organizations, including the American College of Surgeons, the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), Intermountain Healthcare and Premier Healthcare Alliance, is pleased that the U.S. House of Representatives voted to remove the longstanding ban in its Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies appropriations bill that stifles innovation around patient identification.

The Strategic Health Information Exchange Collaborative

SHIEC (@SHIEClive) is the National Trade Association for Health Information Exchange Organizations. It is routine for important data about patients’ ongoing care to reside in multiple unconnected organizations. SHIEC member HIEs use information technology and trusted relationships in their service areas to enable secure, authorized exchange of patient information among disparate providers. By providing enhanced access to all available and relevant patient data SHIEC HIE members aim to improve the quality, coordination, and cost-effectiveness of health care provided in their communities. Read their news feed.

The Sequoia Project

The Sequoia Project (@SequoiaProject) was chartered to advance the implementation of secure, interoperable nationwide health information exchange. The ONC transitioned management of its eHealth Exchange to The Sequoia Project for maintenance. Since 2012, the Exchange has grown to become the largest health information exchange network in the country.

The Sequoia Project Launches Emergency Preparedness Information Workgroup for State Interoperability and Health Information Sharing Challenges
The Sequoia Project, a non-profit and trusted advocate for nationwide interoperability, is launching a new Emergency Preparedness Information Workgroup this month as part of the organization’s Interoperability Matters Cooperative. This workgroup will consider lessons learned from the response to the ongoing COVID pandemic and determine appropriate recommendations for making information more readily available to support emergency preparedness for future disasters.

The Sequoia Project Offers 13-Week Information Blocking Compliance Boot Camp Again in 2021
The Sequoia Project, a non-profit dedicated to solving health IT interoperability for the public good, has launched a second edition of its popular information blocking compliance boot camp program to help healthcare and health IT communities prepare for the updated April 5, 2021 deadline to comply with U.S. Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) information blocking and interoperability rules.

The CommonWell

CommonWell Health Alliance (@CommonWell) is devoted to the simple vision that health data should be available to individuals and providers regardless of where care occurs. Additionally, provider access to this data must be built-in health IT at a reasonable cost for use by a broad range of health care providers and the people they serve.

New Year, New Members!
CommonWell welcomes two companies who are innovators in the health IT world. CureMD and Human API build upon our membership dedicated to providing access to health data for both individuals and care providers. We are excited to welcome both companies to our Alliance and look forward to seeing what 2021 will bring for CommonWell, our 80+ members and our industry as a whole.

Slow COVID-19: CommonWell Member Resources & Initiatives
Since inception, CommonWell members have been innovators and game changers in the health IT space. Today is no different. In this time of uncertainty and stress to both our health system and our personal wellbeing, it is not surprising that their members once again are stepping up to the challenge to solve some of our world’s biggest challenges. Through their website, they will continue to share and update what their members are doing in the fight to slow COVID-19, provide necessary care coordination resources, and ultimately, help save lives.

DirectTrust

A pioneer in offering technical trust and confidence in the secure exchange of health information, DirectTrust (@DirectTrustorg) is committed to collaboration for advancing secure communication. As a non-profit trade alliance, DirectTrust operates not only as a membership organization, but also as an ANSI-accredited standards body, a trust framework supported by policy, and an accreditor for reliable and trusted exchange across the DirectTrust network. Read their News and Events.

DirectTrust Announces Number of Direct Secure Messages Surpasses 2 Billion
DirectTrust announced the number of Direct Secure Messages transmitted since it began keeping track has surpassed two billion, fueled by a record number of transactions in the fourth quarter, according to year-end results. DirectTrust also reported a continued explosive surge in patient/consumer addresses. DirectTrust is a non-profit healthcare industry alliance created to support secure, identity-verified electronic exchanges of protected health information (PHI) between provider organizations, and between providers and patients, for the purpose of improved coordination of care.

HL7

Founded in 1987, Health Level Seven International (HL7) (@HL7) is a not-for-profit, ANSI-accredited standards developing organization dedicated to providing a comprehensive framework and related standards for the exchange, integration, sharing, and retrieval of electronic health information that supports clinical practice and the management, delivery and evaluation of health services. HL7 is supported by more than 1,600 members from over 50 countries, including 500+ corporate members representing healthcare providers, government stakeholders, payers, pharmaceutical companies, vendors/suppliers, and consulting firms. Read their newsfeed.

Resources

Case Study: NEHII Rises to the Challenge of COVID-19 with Cloud-Based Analytics and Robust Patient Matching Tools
The Nebraska Health Information Initiative (NEHII) is a leading non-profit health information exchange (HIE) serving more than 4 million residents across 300 participating health care providers, payers and the State of Nebraska. NEHII partnered with NextGate to accurately match and connect critical public health information across the state of Nebraska to support trusted data exchange and case reporting for COVID-19 using an Enterprise Master Patient Index on Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Download this eBook by NextGate to read the case study.

Consensus: The Chase for Interoperability
In its continued campaign to bring about data interoperability across the healthcare industry by 2024, the HHS’s Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) jointly released a set of new rules in 2019 to further promote the seamless exchange of protected health information (PHI). Despite increasing attempts to facilitate interoperability through regulations, the challenges lie elsewhere in creating seamless data exchange among a patient’s physician, hospital, labs, pharmacy, and others along the continuum of care.

Download this paper by eFax Corporate to learn more about the fastest, most cost-effective way for your organization to access and share patient data through one interoperable platform.

eHealth Initiative Resource Center
Interoperability Files – Check out the new white paper resource in the eHealth Initiative’s (@eHealthDC) Resource Center: Case Study: Remote Patient Monitoring

ONC Interoperability Pledge
Companies that provide 90 percent of electronic health records used by hospitals nationwide as well as the top five largest health care systems in the country have agreed to implement three core commitments: Consumer Access, No Blocking/Ensuring Transparency, and Standards. The ONC (@ONC_HealthIT) wants vendors to sign a pledge. Is your vendor pledging? Find out who is on the list.