HIT for HIEs

The following is a guest blog by Mike O’Neill, CEO at MedicaSoft. This is the third blog in a three-part sponsored blog post series focused on new HIT for integration. Each month, a different MedicaSoft expert will share insights on new and innovative technology and its applications in healthcare.

Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) have been in the news lately, and for good reason. With major hurricanes devastating Texas, Florida, the British Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico, accessibility of patient health information rapidly became a major concern. Electronic Health Record adoption has led to most patient data being in electronic form, but it hasn’t necessarily made that data available when and where care is delivered. HIEs can help make that data available; during the recent storms two HIEs were able to spring to action to help clinicians provide care for patients. The ability of the Houston and San Antonio-area HIEs (Greater Houston Healthconnect (GHHC) and Healthcare Access San Antonio (HASA) to exchange information allowed patient records to be accessed remotely – which was absolutely critical during this natural disaster.

If you were on the fence about “the cloud,” this is the perfect case study in its effectiveness. More than ever, HIEs are called upon to assist by making health records available during critical care encounters. HIEs need modern technology to best serve their communities in these instances, going beyond basic connectivity and interoperability to deliver tangible value using the wealth of data they collect –

  1. Organize the data into meaningful health records. HIEs often have access to years of raw data. They may need help organizing it into a clinical data repository, matching patients, and providing a health record that is clinically useful. This is one way we assist HIEs in using the data they’ve collected.
  2. Provide valuable alerts & notifications. These are useful, especially in a crisis, to locate patients, but they can also give patients notice on events they need to follow-up on. This is another layer we build onto HIEs’ data foundation.

Health records that are useful go a long way – beyond individual hospitals, and regions and state lines. To be useful, health records must go where the patients go, wherever that may be.

An emerging approach to meet this need is the Strategic Health Information Exchange Collaborative (SHIEC’s) Patient-Centered Data Home (PCDH) concept among HIEs. PCDH helps providers access real-time health information across regional and state lines, wherever the patient is seeking care. Regardless of where the clinical data originates, it becomes part of the patient’s longitudinal patient record – the PCDH – giving patients control of their data.

About Mike O’Neill
Mike is the CEO at MedicaSoft. He came to MedicaSoft from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) where he was a Senior Advisor and member of the founding team of the VA Center for Innovation. Mike serves as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Open Source Electronic Health Record Alliance (OSEHRA). Prior to VA, Mike was involved in the commercialization of new products and technology in startups and large companies. He is a die-hard Virginia Tech Hokie.  

About MedicaSoft
MedicaSoft designs, develops, delivers, and maintains EHR, PHR, and UHR software solutions and HISP services for healthcare providers and patients around the world. For more information, visit www.medicasoft.us or connect with us on Twitter @MedicaSoftLLC, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

   

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