Ohio's HIE continues to expand

The board of directors of the Central Ohio Health Information Exchange (COHIE) has endorsed CliniSync, Ohio's statewide health information exchange (HIE), as the preferred HIE provider for the 14-county Central Ohio region served by COHIE.

“The benefits to having a fully operational HIE in a community can be enormous,” said Tim Bangert, COHIE interim director. “Providers are able to access critical patient information not only to improve patient care, but also to avoid costly redundancies in testing and other treatments.”

COHIE is one of seven regional partners in the state that is now assisting 1,368 primary care physicians at the practice level with the adoption of EHR systems under a federal grant program managed by the nonprofit Ohio Health Information Partnership (The Partnership). A total of 6,500 physicians have signed up for services through The Partnership and its regional partners since October 2011.

“We recognize that providers and healthcare systems will move down the path to full integration of an HIE at a pace that is appropriate for their unique circumstances,” Bangert said. “What COHIE has done is the due diligence. We have evaluated and understand the details of CliniSync. When the time comes for each organization to connect to an HIE, we feel certain providers can connect into CliniSync with confidence.”

To date, 70 Ohio hospitals have contracted to join CliniSync and 20 are “live” on the network, and 426 physicians in 90 practices are receiving results and reports directly from their local hospitals. The total number of physicians signed up to receive CliniSync services is 946.