HIE expanding state by state

State by state, the healthcare community is taking steps forward with health information exchange (HIE).

At the Office of the National Coordinator of Health IT’s (ONC) annual meeting, three states were recognized for their achievements with health IT. ONC's chief Farzad Mostashari, MD, ScM, said, “Maine rocked it!” Supported by HealthInfoNet, the Regional Extension Center (REC) and the statewide HIE, clinicians across Maine, including those in the Bangor Beacon Community, share important patient information to drive private, secure and effective care coordination across the community and the state.

Today, roughly 1.1 million individuals have records in the statewide HIE. Thirty of Maine’s 39 hospitals, and more than 300 ambulatory sites are now connected. As of Dec. 1, the Maine REC—serving 1,000 providers—has helped 892 providers go live on a certified EHR and more than 300 achieve Meaningful Use attestation. In the Bangor Beacon Community, providers continue to collect, share and analyze information with the focus of improving the health of people with chronic conditions such as diabetes, congestive heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma. Preliminary results from the Bangor Beacon show reductions in emergency department visits by 43 percent over 12 months, non-urgent care visits have been reduced by 75 percent over 12 months, and hospitalizations have decreased 42 percent over 12 months.

In the plains, Kansas is the first U.S. state to connect to the national disease outbreak surveillance system via HIE. Although various individuals hospitals across the U.S. already are linked to the system, officials at BioSense, the syndromic surveillance system at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said that the Kansas Health Information Network (KHIN) is the first HIE to begin contributing data.

The CDC system tracks 89 syndrome categories as mandated by the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness Response Act of 2002.

Among the 89 reporting categories are a wide variety of symptoms that, when aggregated across larger geographic areas, can reveal any number of possible outbreaks tied to a common diagnosis, including asthma, abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting, hemorrhages, rashes and even spates of vehicle crashes.

The University of Texas at Austin launched an HIE laboratory designed to simulate the national, state and local networks that are being developed to electronically exchange medical data. The laboratory is part of the university’s health IT program offering a certificate program designed to “fast track” university graduates into the rapidly evolving field of health IT.

By creating a simulated “Central Texas Regional HIE” and “North Texas Regional HIE” comprising virtual medical practices in four Texas cities using cloud computing, this laboratory models the “network of networks” designed by the Texas Health Services Authority for the State of Texas.

When does your state stand on the HIE continuum and is your facility connected?

Beth Walsh, editor

Clinical Innovation + Technology