News Feature | July 8, 2014

Virginia HIE Hopes To Ease Sharing Of Patient Information

Christine Kern

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

Ease Patient Sharing Information

HeaLixVA promises to improve exchange of data and communication.

The Medical Society of Northern Virginia has launched HeaLixVA, which the organization says is "a physician-led, secure, and confidential electronic system to share patient information across all points of medical care in our community," according to HealthData Management. “Health information is kept in separate silos. Our vision for HeaLixVA is to provide this vital link,” said Dr. Michael Fields, the health information committee chairman for the medical society, in a news release.

The platform will feature standard HIE technologies, including an enterprise master patient index, EHR interfacing, referral messaging, a patient portal, an audit repository, and more.

"HeaLixVA will be supported by MSNVA experts who will deliver technical assistance to subscribers from set-up through implementation, providing physicians with the security and necessary educational support for a successful adoption," according to the McLean, VA-based organization. "This technology will help physicians find efficiencies and cost saving measures that will reduce escalating overhead costs of running a practice, manage their patients' clinical data, drive the use of evidence-based medicine, while delivering high quality and cost effective medical care."

The MSNVA will charge participating clinicians $25 per provider per month to participate in the exchange. Subscribers to HeaLixVA can also receive monthly clinical analytics reporting to view and monitor patients' longitudinal data and quantify outcomes.

The promised immediate return on investment (ROI) includes:

  • Savings of an average of $50 per referral, relative to processing the referral manually.
  • Transmission of a single claim transaction via paper or fax bearing an average cost of $5 (labor and material), exchange this transaction electronically costs $0.25.
  • Average cost of delivering a clinical result outside an exchange platform is $0.75 per result, delivering this result using the exchange costs of $0.12.
  • Access to data sets that are currently used by payers and hospitals to profile physicians.

Ultimately, the organization stated, "These reporting tools will help physicians effectively analyze their own performance measures to quickly and efficiently learn from data results, and improve services and delivery of care," and "Moreover, having access to data sets that are currently used by payers and hospitals to profile physicians will empower subscribers to negotiate fair reimbursement rates with insurance companies.”