Accenture completes an assessment on an HIE for Texas, InterSystems rolls out Rhode Island's exchange, and Harris adds secure messaging for Florida's health records database.
Texas, Rhode Island and
Florida have announced new developments in their efforts to allow doctors and
clinicians to view and share electronic health records through HIEs.
Health information exchanges
enable hospitals, laboratories, pharmacies and physicians to access electronic
health records (EHRs) in multiple databases and formats. Interoperability with
multiple systems allows HIE databases to qualify for federal financial incentives.
On Sept. 7, consulting and
technology services firm Accenture completed an assessment for the Texas Health
Services Authority (THSA) and detailed how that state can maintain
interoperability for its HIE.
Accenture works with
technology vendors to develop integrated products for government IT projects,
while the THSA is a public-private partnership contracted by the Texas Health
and Human Services Commission (HHSC) to boost the Texas health care system and promote
IT initiatives such as HIEs.
Under Accenture's strategy,
HIEs will be interoperable among unaffiliated organizations, the company
reports. Accenture has formed an enterprise architecture blueprint (EAB) that
lays out the EAB life cycle in three parts over six years. The company has also
published specifications detailing how data should flow to local and regional
HIEs.
In a separate development,
on Jan. 12 HP announced it had been awarded a contract by the Texas HHSC to
create a
statewide
Medicaid HIE, allowing 70,000 Medicaid providers to access patient medical
histories. Meanwhile, health IT company
Sandlot
has also developed an HIE for Texas to allow organizations to share data
and analyze population health.
On Sept. 6, health care
software developer InterSystems announced the rollout of Rhode Island's HIE.
Called Currentcare, the
database is based on InterSystems'
HealthShare informatics
platform. HealthShare provides a universal view of HIE data in real time for
both internal and external systems, according to InterSystems.
HealthShare also provides
analytics on structured and unstructured medical data and powers the health
record databases for organizations such as Johns Hopkins Hospital,
Massachusetts General Hospital and UCLA Medical Center.
InterSystems plans to allow
doctors to use the platform to notify medical homes when a patient is
discharged from a hospital and returned to a live-in facility.
The Rhode Island Quality
Institute (RIQI) manages the rollout of the HIE. Initially, the data exchange
will incorporate lab results of 165,000 Rhode Island residents from East Side
Clinical Laboratory, based in East Providence.
The Rhode Island project
will involve a scalable approach, and data will be available in real time,
according to RIQI.
On Aug. 30, Harris, a
company that designs and manages IT infrastructure for the government, began
offering Direct Secure Messaging, a secure email service for
Florida's HIE to allow doctors to
exchange data electronically.
"Transforming health
care requires a secure and connected framework," Jim Traficant, president
of Harris Healthcare Solutions, said in a statement. "Direct Secure
Messaging is another standards-based innovation delivered by Harris to enable
Florida, other states and health enterprises to share critical health
information in a trusted exchange model."
Direct Secure Messaging is
the first step for Florida's HIE database, according to Harris. This fall, the
IT company will add Patient Look-up, a service that will allow clinicians to
access individual EHRs from those practices contributing records to the Florida
HIE.
Harris plans to add at least
20 health care organizations by 2014.
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