Statewide Health Information Exchanges (HIE) come in all shapes and sizes but have one thing in common: To improve the quality, safety and efficiency of health care delivered in their states. Here are updates being reported from these organizations.
Vermont – VITL
A new event notification service for Vermont providers is in the works due to the recent partnership of Vermont Information Technology Leaders(@VITLVT) VITL with PatientPing. PatientPing (@PatientPing) offers providers real time notification when their patients receive care elsewhere. Vermont patients will now receive more coordinated care through this collaboration of the public and private sectors.
VITL completed a project in December with Community Health Accountable Care, LLC (CHAC) that will provide clinical patient data for their attributed patients. The CHAC Gateway Project put in place the capability to identify and route CHAC patient data coming into the Vermont Health Information Exchange (VHIE). Once identified, the patient data will be made available to CHAC for use in managing the health of their patients from participating network providers.
CORHIO and New Mexico Health Information Collaborative (NMHIC)
Colorado and New Mexico can now share clinical patient information due to the recent connection between the health information exchanges (HIEs) of the two states. This collaboration stands to benefit patients tremendously since many commonly cross state lines for work and/or healthcare in the Four Corners Region. Prior to this connection the states had inadequate state-to-state information exchange which led to little communication among providers and poor care coordination.
Colorado Regional Health Information Organization – CORHIO
Participants in CORHIO Network now have access to data from three Wyoming hospitals. The network is now enhanced with clinical data, including laboratory, radiology and pathology results, admit/discharge/transfer information, and transcription notes from three additional hospitals in the Banner Health system which includes Washakie Medical Center, Platte County Memorial Hospital, and Community Hospital.
CORHIO (@CORHIO) is also reporting it is celebrating its Five-Year Anniversary with continued growth in the Network. Read more about their news.
HIE Texas
At both the state and federal levels, electronic health record (EHR) interoperability continues to be a focus in 2016. Carequality (@CarequalityNet), a public-private, multi-stakeholder collaborative, has joined with HIETexas (@HIETexas) to help expand connectivity in Texas. This new partnership was led by The Sequoia Project (@Sequoiaproject) that seeks to enable seamless connectivity across all participating health exchange networks.
PA eHealth Partnership Authority
The health information organization (HIO), Mount Nittany Exchange (MNX), which serves central Pennsylvania, has signed on to participate in the Pennsylvania eHealth Partnership Authority’s (@PAeHealth) Pennsylvania Patient & Provider Network, or P3N. So far this year, MNX is the fourth HIO to join P3N in 2016.
Washington State
The Washington State Legislature recently passed another telemedicine bill (Senate Bill 6519) for the second year in a row. The bill helps reduce the barriers to patient access to remote healthcare and also creates a telemedicine collaborative whose purpose is to “enhance the understanding and use of health services provided to telemedicine and other similar models in Washington State.”