By - Following four unsuccessful attempts over the past decade, Connecticut is scheduled to launch its statewide health information exchange (HIE) in November, according to the Connecticut Post.
Connecticut state leaders found it is not an easy task to implement a statewide HIE, and as a result, each unsuccessful attempt has cost the state millions of dollars.
More recently, a Connecticut Health Foundation report said the state’s organizers must develop long-term financial plans for sustainability and attract participants before launching the HIE.
State leaders wanted the HIE up and running during the initial surge of COVID-19, but it did not launch in time. This frustrated leaders because the HIE could have helped during the first wave of the pandemic.
“I just wonder how many people could have been saved, had we had this up and running,” said Allan Hackney, Connecticut’s health information technology officer. “How many health care workers could have avoided burnout if we had this data? I get very frustrated.”
Since March, over 4,500 individuals in the state have died of COVID-19.
“They were showing live graphs of information on what’s happening with COVID in counties and towns, by zip code, by age,” Hackney said. “Then we get to Connecticut - and yes, we have some reporting we’re pretty happy with - but the data is coming in whenever it comes in, and the robustness of it is not even in the ballpark of what I saw from Maine and Rhode Island. They’ve had HIEs for a long, long time.”
A strong health data exchange is vital during a pandemic, as hospitals become overcrowded and patients visit unfamiliar facilities. HIEs can also integrate immunization information, which is also crucial during this time.
“We’ve had to piece together public data, private data, data from the Connecticut Hospital Association, and other information to understand what’s going on,” said Max Reiss, a spokesman Governor Ned Lamont. “Tools like this prevent that time from being wasted. It would have been easier … to have something like this in place seven months ago.”
The statewide HIE is set to reduce costs and improves care by eliminating the chances of duplicative testing. It also links several providers without going through the process of establishing a connection with each facility and it helps identify health trends.
An HIE also presents financial benefits for the state. Medicaid and Medicare services are based on health outcomes data and health systems can only receive payments if they can show that they are improving care quality and reducing hospital readmissions.
Hackney said it’s been a frustrating decade for state leaders, but gaining back recent support has helped decrease the frustration.
“When I think back to where I started, we went to do outreach and it was, ‘What the heck is the state doing? Why did you let this stuff linger?’ People were angry,” Hackney said. “Now they have come around. They’re motivated. They want this thing to work.”
In May, Connecticut and the Health Information Alliance (HIA) inked its first HIE client, Connecticut State Medical Society’s CTHealthLink exchange.
Robert H. Aseltine, PhD, chair of the advisory board for CTHealthLink, told EHRIntelligence it was a no-brainer for CTHealthLink to sign on with the statewide HIE, CONNIE.
“With the state putting so many resources and so much effort and planning into this, it would be very difficult to decline,” Aseltine explained in May.
“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.”
"exchange" - Google News
October 20, 2020 at 08:30PM
https://ift.tt/2HlXZxC
CT Health Information Exchange Set to Launch in November - EHRIntelligence.com
"exchange" - Google News
https://ift.tt/3c55nbe
https://ift.tt/3b2gZKy
Exchange
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "CT Health Information Exchange Set to Launch in November - EHRIntelligence.com"
Post a Comment