Idaho Health Data Exchange Signs Agreement With Greenway Medical For Instant EHR Interoperability With The HIE
The Idaho Health Data Exchange (IHDE), Idaho's state designated Health Information Exchange (HIE), announced recently that it has signed an agreement with Greenway Medical Technologies, a provider of electronic health record (EHR), ambulatory healthcare and clinical research business solutions and services.
As part of this agreement, small and large physician practices across the state can easily participate and connect to the Idaho health information exchange without having to make modifications to their existing Greenway Medical EHRs, or build costly point–to–point interfaces to participate in the HIE.
Idaho physicians using Greenway's integrated EHR, practice management and interoperability solution PrimeSUITE 2011, can immediately connect to the state HIE and have access to community wide clinical data from all participating data sources and health care providers instantly and securely. Through a single interface, Greenway practices and clinics can seamlessly push or pull information from any participant that feeds data into the Idaho Health Data Exchange. The interface will save practices, providers and clinics time on interface building, and cost for connectivity thereby allowing the practice to focus and provide for the needs of the patients.
Coupled with this agreement is an arrangement with a number of physician practices through HighPoint Medical, a provider of medical practice management services, to connect to IHDE. "HighPoint Medical is honored to participate with the Idaho Health Data Exchange and Greenway in offering our medical providers a comprehensive electronic solution to accessing their patient's health history," said Skip Meyer, President, HighPoint Medical. "We feel strongly that this will not only simplify the providers' efforts but will also improve the patient experience through timeliness and quality of care."
"As reliable and scalable data exchange becomes paramount for care coordination, Greenway is gratified to help execute this advancement in care delivery," said Chief Operating Officer of Greenway Medical Technologies Greg Schulenburg. "These types of partnerships with the Idaho HIE and Highpoint Medical, further fueled by exchange engines like that of Axolotl HIE, provide the quality abilities of standard data exchange to reach across states, regions and the eventuality of a national health information network (NwHIN)."
The Axolotl Interoperability Hub from OptumInsight clinically networks disparate, certified EHRs and legacy systems, enabling complete interoperability and fully collaborative patient care via HL7, CCR, CCD and other structures. With a single interface, physician practices are immediately able to exchange data with all participants on a HIE, while also indicating which of their specific data is to be made available for query - providing authorized HIE participants with a more complete picture of a patient's health. EHRs may also connect to the HIE using IHE profile technology, facilitating query and retrieval for the EHR.
"Greenway is the first of several EHR vendor connections that we plan to complete over the next several years," said IHDE Executive Director Scott Carrell. "With Greenway's ability to develop a hub-to-hub connection and HighPoint Medical's support of bringing practices to IHDE, patients across Idaho will benefit from more collaborative and cost effective care."
New health care providers and physicians that participate and connect to IHDE will have access to clinical data from participating data sources including; Kootenai Medical Center, St. Joseph's Regional Medical Center, St. Mary's Hospital, Clearwater Valley Hospital, Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center, St. Luke's Health System, Pathologists Regional Laboratory, Treasure Valley Laboratory, Boise Pathology, PAML, Idaho's Division of Medicaid, Blue Cross of Idaho, Regence Blue Shield of Idaho and others.
Powered by the Axolotl HIE platform from OptumInsight, IHDE enables authorized and participating health care providers to securely exchange critical patient information electronically from hospitals, labs, radiology centers and other business partners, and sending referrals or consults to other health care providers in real-time. IHDE has successfully connected several hospitals, more than 400 participating users and independent reference labs to the statewide exchange, and is actively working to connect additional physician practices, hospitals, lab and radiology centers, and all other health care stakeholders across Idaho.
About HighPoint Medical, Inc.
HighPoint Medical provides a step by step approach in making the crucial change from paper to EMR/EHR. Embracing this technology can bring physician practices to optimum performance levels and significant revenue improvements. The company's specialties include: Medical Practice Management, Electronic Health Records and IT Support & Hosting. For more information, visit www.highpointmed.com.
About Greenway Medical Technologies, Inc.
Greenway Medical Technologies provides innovative EHR, ambulatory healthcare and clinical research business solutions and services to more than 33,000 healthcare providers nationwide, in 30 specialties and subspecialties, by enhancing the delivery of patient care through advanced health IT software and on-demand services that allow physician practices to function at their highest level of efficiency in group practice, IDN, REC, HIE, IPA, Accountable Care Organization (ACO) and Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) settings. Established in 1998, Carrollton, Ga.-based Greenway is a privately held company with more than 500 employees. For more information, visit www.greenwaymedical.com.
About The Idaho Health Data Exchange
The Idaho Health Data Exchange, Inc., a 501(c)(6) non-profit corporation, was established to govern the development and implementation of the health data exchange in Idaho. IHDE is governed by a Board of Directors which provides direction and oversight to the organization. The Board includes representation from both the public and private sectors, including the health care delivery and financing systems, health care providers and consumers. The IHDE was created as a result of the efforts of the Health Quality Planning Commission. The Health Quality Planning Commission was created by the 2006 Legislature. The Commission was charged with promoting improved quality of care and health outcomes through investment in health information technology. Initial funding for the effort was appropriated by Idaho's Legislature and ongoing funding comes from participants in the Exchange and ARRA grant dollars. For more information, visit http://www.idahohde.org.
SOURCE: The Idaho Health Data Exchange (IHDE)