RelayHealth And NXT Demonstrated Data Exchange On NHIN At Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System

RelayHealth, in collaboration with influential industry think tank NXT, announced jointly today the first successful demonstration of standards-based clinical data exchange linking a personal health record (PHR) with a mock-up federal medical facility on the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN). Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System (SRHS) in Spartanburg, S.C., a non-profit healthcare system, tested this prototype through the federally developed CONNECT software designed to support NHIN access. The findings show continuity of care that patients can receive from the sharing of data connecting military and civilian health systems.

Spartanburg Regional is a system of hospitals and physician offices across five counties in South Carolina and Western North Carolina. The successful test prototype shows how a physician using RelayHealth online tools embedded in Spartanburg Regional's electronic medical records (EMR) system can review a patient's military health summary in conjunction with aggregated data from a community hospital, medical practice, patient entered information, and a pharmacy claims network. The patient, in turn, can use the RelayHealth PHR to review the same data and take action, such as send a message to their primary care provider about a non-urgent ailment, schedule an in-office visit, or access patient education.

The venture is part of Spartanburg Regional's participation in the Hospital of the Future Program, a national testing effort of innovative technologies used to develop the next standard in care delivery. Spartanburg Regional is a 2006 recipient of the congressional special interest appropriation project under the guidance of the U.S. Army's Telemedicine & Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC). NXT, a non-profit think tank specializing in healthcare, innovative lab research and design, conceived and orchestrated the constituents, technology elements, processes and facility design to help SRHS achieve the grant award.

"Spartanburg Regional is honored to be the test site of this military to private sector care transition to encourage innovation and to enable future health information exchanges over the NHIN," said Ray Shingler, vice president of support services and chief information officer at Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System, which began offering RelayHealth to its physicians and patients in 2008. "RelayHealth is the perfect technology fit to aggregate and facilitate this patient health data transfer for this prototype to ensure the patient and his community physician are connected and empowered to continue his care regimen to recovery."

With a vast majority of specialty referrals transferring from military hospitals to private sector hospitals, the risk of mostly paper-based medical records being misplaced, lost or damaged is high, causing significant interruption to care treatment continuity. By partnering with RelayHealth, large hospital systems like Spartanburg Regional can create virtual information exchanges that can: eliminate paper dependence, minimize potential errors from illegible hand-writing, and transport patient health data 24/7 to improve clinical decision making and care coordination at the military treatment facility, local hospital and remote medical practice.

Local physicians and patients enrolled on the RelayHealth HIPAA-compliant network can view their PHR data populated by the hospital or their practice physician. This information encompasses the latest interactions, medication history, allergies, diagnoses, messaging and webVisit consultations concerning routine practice matters or non-urgent medical symptoms.

The significance of completing this successful test holds great potential value to integrate military and civilian medical data when NHIN connectivity goes into full production. The demonstration depicts a soldier who recently returned home and is being treated for a lingering burn wound with the antibiotic cephalexin. She develops a skin rash that becomes infected and logs onto to RelayHealth to message concerns to her Spartanburg Regional primary care physician. Through CONNECT and RelayHealth, the doctor quickly downloads the soldier's medication and allergy information from the U.S. Department of Defense's Central Data Repository using the NHIN gateway and ascertains that with her penicillin allergy, the cephalexin might be the cause of the rash. The physician electronically prescribes a new medication and schedules an in-person appointment within a week. Through CONNECT and RelayHealth, the soldier, physician and other involved care team members have access to a complete record as the patient's PHR is populated continuously with integrated data from both private sector and military providers to improve quality and outcomes.

"Using the new CONNECT gateway interoperability framework, RelayHealth built connectivity to the NHIN within only a few weeks," said Tom Jennings, principal of NXT. "We're fortunate to have Spartanburg Regional willing to test this process to prove that clinical information can be shared and exchanged easily and securely. The more success we achieve with connectivity the higher the quality of care and patient outcomes for our military personnel."

"RelayHealth is proud to support Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System, the Military Health System and NXT to build this data transfer prototype that sets the stage for future NHIN CONNECT gateway interoperability," said Jim Bodenbender president of RelayHealth's Provider and Consumer Solutions. "RelayHealth is committed to providing a complete health record for our physicians and patients with connectivity to all public and private exchanges and medical facilities on the NHIN."

You can see a demonstration of the Spartanburg system at the NHIN and CONNECT Area within the Interoperability Showcase at the HIMSS Conference in Atlanta, GA, March 1-3, 2010. About NXT
NXT is a nonprofit influential think tank committed to promoting innovative research and design processes in the healthcare industry. The company connects professionals within healthcare organizations, universities, governmental agencies and private industry to facilitate the exploration of new concepts to transform the future of healthcare delivery. NXT was formed in 2007 as facilitator of new-age research and design efforts across the entire healthcare continuum. The organization is actively involved in a number of initiatives throughout the U.S. and abroad. For more information, visit www.nxthealth.org.

About Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System
Spartanburg Regional is one of South Carolina's largest community-based healthcare providers. Offering the latest in cancer, heart, women's and orthopedic care, Spartanburg Regional has also been named a "Top 100" hospital for computer technology and has received awards for patient satisfaction and nursing care. Gibbs Cancer Center is also the exclusive local host affiliate of M. D. Anderson Physicians Network.

About RelayHealth
RelayHealth, McKesson's connectivity business, operates as a neutral partner in an open network environment, offering connectivity services and integration among all organizations, systems, and solutions. Its intelligent network is designed to streamline clinical, financial and administrative communication between patients, providers, payors, pharmacies, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and financial institutions. RelayHealth works to accelerate the delivery of high-quality care and improve financial performance through solutions such as online consultation of physicians by patients, electronic prescribing, point-of-service pharmacy claims resolution by payors, pre-visit patient financial clearance by providers, and post-visit provider bill settlement by payors and patients. RelayHealth securely processes more than 12.8 billion financial and clinical transactions annually. For more information, call (800) 778-6711, or visit our Web site at www.RelayHealth.com.

About TATRC
The Telemedicine & Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC) performs medical reconnaissance and special operations to address critical gaps that are underrepresented in DoD medical research programs. TATRC is an office of the headquarters of the US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC). TATRC fosters research on health informatics, telemedicine/m-Health, medical training systems, and computational biology, and promotes and manages science and engineering in other key portfolios. Through an extensive network of partners, TATRC is focused at both ends of the research spectrum, exploring models of high risk and innovative research, and putting research findings into the hands of warfighters while looking toward wider civilian utility. TATRC augments core medical research programs through special funding and partnership opportunities. For more information about TATRC and its' initiatives, please visit: www.tatrc.org

**"This research and development project is being conducted by RelayHealth and is made possible by a Hospital of the Future, Congressional Special Interest Project grant that was awarded to Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System and is awarded and administered by the U.S. Army Medical Research & Materiel Command (USAMRMC) and the Telemedicine & Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC), under Contract Number: W81XWH--07-2-0060, Hospital of the Future, Congressional Special Interest Project, Spartanburg Regional Health System.

SOURCE: RelayHealth