Metro-Chicago HIE planned
The Metropolitan Chicago Healthcare Council (MCHC) plans to develop the MetroChicago Health Information Exchange (HIE), which is expected to be the largest metropolitan HIE in the nation, serving more than 9.4 million people.
More than 66 hospitals and major outpatient care organizations have submitted letters of intent to MCHC to participate in this industry-led initiative. Participating organizations will fund the HIE, the council stated.
Initially, the MetroChicago HIE will build use cases aligned with meaningful use incentives as outlined in the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, passed in 2009. The goal is to implement functionality that offers value to the largest number of stakeholders and that can be deployed quickly, MCHC stated.
The first two use cases to be deployed will be clinical summary-emergency department (ED) linking, which will provide authorized healthcare providers with a consolidated view of the patient’s medical history, with input regarding test results, problems and medication information from other providers across the region.
By enabling the flow of data across healthcare organizations, the MetroChicago HIE expects decreased costs from fewer redundant tests across care settings, reduced time spent gathering information about patients and greater efficiency in identifying patients requiring ongoing ambulatory care.
The HIE will use Microsoft’s Amalga enterprise health intelligence platform to aggregate and present a unified view of patient medical history data at the time and point of care. CSC will provide project management, implementation, hosting and support services.
In addition, software components from HealthUnity will provide foundational HIE services and Continuity of Care Document (CCD) exchange services, according to MCHC, a membership and service association comprising more than 150 hospitals and healthcare organizations working to improve delivery of healthcare services in the greater metropolitan Chicago area.
More than 66 hospitals and major outpatient care organizations have submitted letters of intent to MCHC to participate in this industry-led initiative. Participating organizations will fund the HIE, the council stated.
Initially, the MetroChicago HIE will build use cases aligned with meaningful use incentives as outlined in the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, passed in 2009. The goal is to implement functionality that offers value to the largest number of stakeholders and that can be deployed quickly, MCHC stated.
The first two use cases to be deployed will be clinical summary-emergency department (ED) linking, which will provide authorized healthcare providers with a consolidated view of the patient’s medical history, with input regarding test results, problems and medication information from other providers across the region.
By enabling the flow of data across healthcare organizations, the MetroChicago HIE expects decreased costs from fewer redundant tests across care settings, reduced time spent gathering information about patients and greater efficiency in identifying patients requiring ongoing ambulatory care.
The HIE will use Microsoft’s Amalga enterprise health intelligence platform to aggregate and present a unified view of patient medical history data at the time and point of care. CSC will provide project management, implementation, hosting and support services.
In addition, software components from HealthUnity will provide foundational HIE services and Continuity of Care Document (CCD) exchange services, according to MCHC, a membership and service association comprising more than 150 hospitals and healthcare organizations working to improve delivery of healthcare services in the greater metropolitan Chicago area.