IHE USA And Health Story Advance Sharing Of The Patient Story

Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) North American Connectathon will include testing of the Health Story supported Consolidated CDA during the largest health IT testing event in the United States.

A patient’s clinical history offers detailed and valuable health information, data not always available in an accessible format in a digital medical record. To help simplify sharing that patient story with clinical data, IHE USA and the Health Story Project will offer testing of Consolidated Clinical Document Architecture, known as Consolidated CDA, at the annual IHE North American Connectathon 2013, where health IT systems test information exchange across organizational boundaries to demonstrate the capabilities and benefits of those systems.

The Health Story Project and IHE have collaborated closely since the project’s inception in 2008. This alliance leverages IHE integration profiles and the Consolidated CDA standard from Health Level Seven International (HL7) to offer a clear communication path and common language for health IT standards. 

As the adoption of interoperable health IT systems continues to grow under the mandate of the HITECH Act, the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) recently referenced use of Consolidated CDA as a proposed requirement for Stage 2 meaningful use of EHR systems. The potential ruling has accelerated efforts toward adoption of Consolidated CDA and the resulting need for testing to validate CDA content with IHE integration profiles at the IHE Connectathon.

The Connectathon offers a timely and efficient testing option, since the 2013 event will be held in Chicago from Jan. 28 - Feb. 2, 2013, at the Hyatt Regency Chicago, 151 E. Wacker Drive. In January 2012, the IHE North American Connectathon reached record-breaking participation, with over 120 participating organizations testing more than 150 systems advancing the health IT industry and patient safety.

“We produce over a billion clinical documents in the U.S. each year—it’s a tremendous source of clinical information that is underutilized in current computer-based record systems,” said Joy Kuhl, executive director, Health Story Project.  “Having information from clinical documents available in a CDA-structured format will make it easier for providers to participate in quality reporting, improvement, research and other activities.” 

“Offering Consolidated CDA testing with Health Story at the 2013 Connectathon will help vendors prepare for upcoming meaningful use Stage 2 and certification testing,” said Joyce Sensmeier, president, IHE USA.  “We are pleased to collaborate with Health Story to bring this testing opportunity to the industry.”

About IHE USA
IHE USA is a not-for-profit organization established in 2010 that operates as a deployment committee of IHE International. The mission of IHE USA is to drive adoption of standards-based interoperability to improve patient care through innovation, standards profiling, testing, education and collaboration. IHE USA improves the efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare delivery by supporting the deployment of standards-based electronic health record systems, facilitating the exchange of health information among care providers, both within the enterprise and across care settings, and enabling local, regional and nationwide health information networks in the United States, all in a manner consistent with participation in IHE International, Inc. www.iheusa.org

About Health Story
The Health Story Project was founded four years ago by the Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDI), the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), the Clinical Documentation Industry Association, Lantana Consulting Group, and M*Modal. It is now a collaborative of over two dozen healthcare vendors, providers and associations. Health Story accelerates development of HL7 Clinical Document Architecture (CDA) Implementation Guides for common types of clinical documents, brings them through the HL7 ballot process and promotes their adoption within the industry. Over the previous four years, the initiative produced the first set of national data standards for clinical documents - use of which supports requirements for Meaningful Use of EHRs. Health Story Promoter members include Fujitsu, Inofile, Lantana Consulting Group, M*Modal, Nuance, Optum and Verizon.  The Health Story vision is for complete patient stories to be available in electronic medical records.