By - It took nearly two decades, multiple attempts, and millions of dollars, but Connecticut’s health information exchange has finally taken the leap by signing its first trusted partner, Connecticut State Medical Society’s CTHealthLink.
“It began in the early 2000s and for us to be at this point right now is very exciting,” Robert H. Aseltine, PhD, chair of the advisory board for CTHealthLink, said in an interview with EHRIntelligence. “The state is doing the right thing now and it seems like we’re on the precipice of finally getting a statewide HIE up and running.”
Even though it took the state many tries to establish its HIE, Aseltine said it was a no-brainer for CTHealthLink to sign on with the statewide HIE, which will be named CONNIE.
“With the state putting so many resources and so much effort and planning into this, it would be very difficult to decline,” he explained.
“Once the state decided this was the direction they were going in, we were very pleased they chose a mechanism that allows for partnerships. This will allow us to be extremely successful in serving community based providers and the types of physicians who may not have access to this type of technology based on their practice arrangements.”
READ MORE: CT Health Information Exchange Signs First Client, CTHealthLink
The mechanism is called a network-of-networks concept, which aims to bridge existing networks of health systems together with independent hospitals and providers to enhance interoperability within the state.
“The state’s goal is to add other partners as they come online, but the state has brought a large amount of money to the table through Medicaid 90-10 funds for health information technology infrastructure development,” Aseltine continued. “They have received upwards of $45 million to support this build out.”
Portions of that money will be used to help recruit practices to come on board with CTHealthLink to connect to the statewide HIE.
“The reimbursement that we are able to provide practices to engage with us is a really important feature that the state is bringing to the table,” Aseltine said. “In addition, the state is now focused on bringing on hospital systems and onboarding those to its network. The ability to connect practices and the membership of the Connecticut State Medical Society with these large hospital systems will be very effective.”
Patient data exchange is vital to improving the quality of care for individuals and healthcare overall.
READ MORE: Connecticut Facing Financial Obstacles Prior to 2020 HIE Launch
The benefits of having a statewide HIE include reducing costs and improving care by eliminating the chances of duplicative testing; linking several providers without going through the process of establishing a connection with each individual facility; and identifying health trends.
Now with its first partner in the fold, the HIE can add more partners and develop long-term financial plans for sustainability, both of which were highlighted in a recent Connecticut Health Foundation report.
“We really are the only functioning HIE in the state of Connecticut,” Aseltine said of CTHealthLink. “There have been other efforts to bridge certain facilities and outpatient practices, but not a full-fledged HIE.”
The timing of this partnership just so happened to be executed during one of the best ways to show the importance of a health information exchange — a pandemic, such as COVID-19.
“When patients who very quickly become seriously ill and have to go to the hospital, hospitals oftentimes are blind as to how healthy the patient is and what care they are receiving in other contexts, Aseltine said.
READ MORE: Health Information Exchanges Boost Interoperability in COVID-19
“As we know with COVID-19, it appears that patients’ underlying health issues and comorbidities are very strong predictors and risk factors for severe disease. So being blind to that during this time period can be very disastrous.”
While it would be incorrect to say the pandemic provides any benefits, it is providing a strong rationale for patient data exchange.
“We're pleased that we're still moving forward in a very strong way,” Aseltine continued. “Once we get a little bit further along this summer, the strong use case that COVID-19 provides will still be at the forefront of everyone's minds and we'll be able to move forward very aggressively with our build out.”
With this partnership in place, Aseltine and CTHealthLink are optimistic they will add volume and more connections to the HIE throughout the summer.
“We have to create not just pockets of participation, but wholesale participation across the state, or at least regionally to make this meaningful and useful to the providers that participate,” Aseltine said.
“We feel like we're very close to that. We’re now having patient data from Yale New Haven Health System flow through CTHealthLink through the health exchange and we’re close to adding UCONN Health too.”
Aseltine also noted they will be working on expanding upon these partnerships with other national exchanges in a way that provides a powerful demonstration of the scale they can achieve together.
“This echoes how important health data exchange is for physicians across the state of Connecticut,” Layne Gakos, JD, General Counsel of Connecticut State Medical Society, said to EHRIntelligence.
“We're excited to be where we are right now and to be the first one that's up and running. It's taken a lot of work. But it's been rewarding, and we believe it's going to be rewarding moving forward as the state moves forward in developing its HIE.”
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How a Statewide Health Information Exchange Inked Its First Client - EHRIntelligence.com
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