By - Montana’s governor Steve Bullock announced its statewide health information exchange (HIE), Big Sky Care Connect, will launch in fall 2020, according to the Montana Standard.
Montana is currently one of two states without a statewide HIE. This implementation will soon allow providers to exchange and access patient data, resulting in a boost in care quality and reduced healthcare costs by avoiding readmissions.
“By sharing data, providers will be able to ensure that they’re informed about their patients’ status as they seek different services to promote patient safety and outcomes,” Bullock said at RiverStone Health roundtable discussion on Thursday.
As of now, the HIE has 20 participants, including hospitals, clinics, behavioral health facilities, and long-term care facilities.
Implementing an HIE extends interoperability and improves health data access. This is important in a rural state like Montana, where individuals often have to travel far to get care.
Individuals in rural communities also experience chronic illness at a higher rate than those in urban or suburban areas and face care access issues due to geographic barriers. Enabling better patient data exchange for the sake of improving patient care goes a long way in these communities.
“That’s the old saying, that Montana is a small town with really long streets,” John Felton, Yellowstone County health officer and president and CEO of RiverStone Health, said to the Montana Standard.
Montana providers, such as the Billings Clinic, noted the importance of an HIE, especially during COVID-19. The HIE may make it easier for coronavirus test results to be available to every participating health system.
“We don’t have a way to share our test results from system to system to system,” said Randy Thompson, chief health analyst officer at Billings Clinic. “We’re not aware of any testing outside of our system, so that will be an immediate benefit.”
Big Sky Care Connect is an opt-out exchange, and providers can sign up to use the HIE. Independent providers will pay roughly $300 a year to utilize the exchange, reported the newspaper.
In September 2019, the state received a $19 million grant from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), to support a statewide HIE.
At the time, Bullock said the grant represented a giant step forward for health technology across Montana.
“If we are going to ensure patients receive superior care and reduce burdening health care costs, we have to finally move into the 21st century and go beyond paper health records,” said Bullock in 2019. “A statewide health information exchange brings providers together to collectively use common sense and secure technology to improve health outcomes for Montanans.”
In 2015, Governor Bullock instructed the Governor’s Council on Health Care Innovation to study and eventually implement a statewide HIE to reduce costs, save time and resources for medical providers, and boost patient care.
At that time in 2015, the National Coordinator for Health Information of Technology (ONC) reported that 96 percent of non-federal acute care hospitals and 78 percent of office-based physicians adopted certified health IT, while 82 percent of those non-federal acute care hospitals electronically exchanged laboratory results, radiology reports, clinical summaries or medication lists.
In the ONC’s most recent report in 2018, the percentage of non-federal acute care hospitals that can electronically exchange laboratory results jumped another eight percent to 90 percent.
These capabilities filled a significant healthcare need, the ONC report added.
After studying the subject, the governor’s council partnered with the nonprofit organization, Big Sky Care Connect to establish the HIE. A 90/10 federal match is funding the development. CMS provided $19 million, and the state’s 10 percent share is comprised of an appropriation from the 2019 legislature and private funds Big Sky Care Connect has raised.
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Montana Set to Launch Statewide Health Information Exchange - EHRIntelligence.com
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