HIE Rundown – 4/29/14

HIE Weekly RundownHealth Information Exchange News & Announcements

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.

Two of State’s Largest Health Information Networks Connect for the First Time, Enabling Secure Transfer of Health Data Across Texas
The Texas Health Services Authority (THSA) announced that two of the state’s largest local health information networks took an important step in leveraging technology to connect patients, doctors and hospitals through Greater Houston Healthconnect (HEALTHCONNECT) and Integrated Care Collaboration (ICC) of Austin. This connection, which is made possible by THSA’s state-level shared services, also known as “HIETexas,” enables tens of thousands of health care providers from different parts of the state to quickly and securely share patient health data and critical medical information that can save lives.  Read press release.

ZirMed Introduces Direct Secure Messaging for Clinical Link
ZirMed®, a leading health information connectivity and management solutions company, announced a new, secure, HIPAA-compliant secure messaging feature for Clinical Link®, the company’s cloud-based communications platform. This enhancement enables ZirMed users to exchange messages and clinical documents with any provider organization in the U.S., regardless of an organization’s EHR or practice management system.  Read press release.

Open Health Tools Unites Aurion and FHA CONNECT
Open Health Tools (OHT), an organization that provides leadership for open-source communities in the health IT space, announced that governance of the CONNECT project is migrating to become an OHT Project with active involvement of both the Aurion and Federal Health Architecture (FHA) CONNECT teams. These teams are merging their respective source codes to form a unified platform. The project will continue to be called CONNECT and will reside under the open-source community governance framework promoted by OHT. It will use a meritocracy approach that allows members from across the coding community to contribute to and manage the platform.  Read press release.

Emory and Grady Join Georgia’s First Statewide Electronic Health Information Exchange
Emory Healthcare and Grady Health System join Georgia’s Department of Public Health and the state’s Medicaid program in connecting to the Georgia Health Information Network (GaHIN), the statewide health information exchange network that electronically connects Georgia hospitals, physicians and clinicians to safely and securely exchange patient health information. Connecting to GaHIN allows Emory and Grady to augment continuity of care by enhancing patient care coordination among its authorized providers and affiliates and improves access to a patient’s information for diagnosis and treatment.  Read press release.
 
Dialysis Clinic, Inc., Selects Sandlot Solutions to Support Comprehensive End-Stage Renal Disease Care Initiative
Sandlot Solutions, a leading community health interoperability and analytics provider, announced the beginning of a five-year contract with Dialysis Clinic, Inc. (DCI), a nonprofit corporation providing comprehensive care for patients with kidney disease. Sandlot’s health information technology solutions will help DCI achieve effective clinical interoperability. The ability to exchange clinical data and share information across health systems will enable DCI to deliver exceptional care management and improved patient outcomes. A certified Medicare dialysis provider operating in 28 states, DCI will implement two Sandlot modules, Sandlot Connect, for comprehensive data gathering and exchange, and Sandlot Dimensions, which combines a data warehouse with business intelligence tools.  Read press release.

NextGen Healthcare and Mirth First in Nation to Power Statewide Behavioral Health Information Exchange
NextGen Information Systems, LLC., a wholly owned subsidiary of Quality Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: QSII) and a leading provider of healthcare information systems and connectivity solutions, announced it along with its sister company, Mirth, a global leader in health information technology, are successfully powering the first statewide behavioral health information exchange in the nation; Behavioral Health Information Network of Arizona (BHINAZ).  Read press release.

Netsmart Represents Post-Acute Care Health Information Technology as Founder of Carequality Healthcare Interoperability Initiative
Netsmart continues its leadership in coordinated, connected, healthcare as a founding member of Carequality (pronounced “care-e-quality”), a new industry-driven initiative designed to accelerate progress in health data exchange among multi-platform networks, healthcare providers, and electronic health record (EHR) and health information exchange (HIE) vendors.  Read press release.