HIE Rundown – 9-01-20

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.

Events

2020 SHIEC Annual Conference – 10 Day Series of Virtual Sessions

August 17 – September 15, 2020

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.

News and Noted

MiHIN joins Strategic Health Information Exchange Collaborative
The Michigan Health Information Network Shared Services (MiHIN) (@MiHIN) announced that it has joined the Strategic Health Information Exchange Collaborative (SHIEC) as a Health Information Exchange (HIE) member. SHIEC is the national trade association representing HIEs.

SPH Analytics’ Launches FHIR-Based Interoperability Platform for Health Plans
SPH Analytics (@SPHAnalytics), a healthcare quality and experience analytics company, announced that it has launched Population Care FHIRstation™, a turn-key scalable, secure, multi-tenant Software as a Service interoperability platform which empowers effective information exchange between patients, health IT developers, health systems, EHR vendors, and payers.

Lyniate and PatientPing Form Strategic Partnership to Ensure Compliance with the CMS E-Notifications Requirements
Lyniate (@lyniate), a global company in healthcare data interoperability, announced a partnership with PatientPing (@PatientPing), the nation’s most comprehensive care collaboration platform, to develop a connector solution that provides the IT infrastructure necessary to support seamless integration of e-notification data for admissions, discharges, and transfers (ADT). This partnership is part of Lyniate’s ongoing efforts to reach true interoperability across the healthcare continuum by collaborating via its Co-Creation Lab with other healthcare technology leaders.

eHealth Exchange Launches Electronic Case Reports (eCR) Nationwide
The eHealth Exchange (@eHealthExchange), one of the nation’s largest health information networks connecting federal agencies and providers, announced the first go-live of COVID-19 electronic case reporting (eCR) with the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) and OCHIN. The eHealth Exchange network now enables automated generation and transmission of case reports from electronic health records (EHR) to the necessary public health agencies, increasing accuracy while reducing reporting burdens of providers.

Los Angeles County Department of Health Services Partners with LANES to Populate Empaneled Life Management Platform
The Los Angeles Network for Enhanced Services (LANES) (@LANES_HIE) announced that its repository of secure health information exchange (HIE) data will inform the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services’ (DHS) empaneled life management (ELM) registry-based performance program to support population health initiatives.

EHNAC Releases a New Accreditation Criteria Version for Public Review through September 4
The Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission (EHNAC) (@EHNAC), a non-profit standards development organization and accrediting body for organizations that electronically exchange healthcare data, announced that it has posted a new version of program criteria for public review. The open process for adopting criteria commenced on July 15 and will end on September 4.

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.

Listen

From Payment Matters on HealthcareNOW Radio,  host Jeff Lin is joined by Stanley Nachimson of Nachimson Advisors for a part two in the series on the role of government in healthcare. Jeff and Stanley kick off part two of the series discussing the new interoperability rules and how consumers stand to benefit.

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 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.

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.

Resources

Why Patient Identity Management Tools are Critical for COVID-19 Care and Disease Surveillance
Is your organization struggling to achieve an integrated data environment amid COVID-19? Does fragmented patient information slow down your response efforts? Effective case management and reporting requires ongoing support and creative solutions for healthcare’s most fundamental problems—including oft-overlooked patient identity matching and health information exchange.

Download this eBook by NextGate to learn how to:

  • Bridge the infrastructure gaps that impact COVID-19 responses
  • Overcome demographic data challenges needed create a longitudinal

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: FHIR FAQs

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.