What You Should Know: - A group of six health information exchanges (HIE) announced today their formation of the Consortium for State and Regional Interoperability (CSRI). - The 501(c)(3) CRSI aims to help drive individual and population health improvements across the nation through robust and innovative sharing of health information. - Collective, CRSI connects over 80 million records for patients across several states and provide a wide range of services to healthcare
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HHS Awards $20M in Funds to Increase Data Sharing Between HIEs & Immunization Registries
What You Should Know: - The ONC today unveiled a series of investments to improve
the sharing of health information related to vaccination. - The new investments will provide opportunities to track
vaccination progress, help clinicians contact high-risk patients, and help
identify patients due to receive the second dose of the vaccine. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
acting through the Office of the National
Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) today
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CIO: 3 Rules for Meeting ONC/CMS Interoperability, While Improving Cybersecurity
Healthcare data security has been a growing concern for CIOs for the last year or so, as hackers are increasingly targeting health information. Now, with a global pandemic forcing a shift to telemedicine and remote work, and new rules from the ONC and CMS introducing more regulatory burden, healthcare CIOs have more to manage than ever. Fortunately, it is possible to roll out new capabilities while simultaneously improving cybersecurity by following these three rules: Rule 1: Think Like an
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For Better Patient Care Coordination, We Need Seamless Digital Communications
A recent Advisory Board briefing examined the annual Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Readmission penalties. Of the 3,080 hospitals CMS evaluated, 83% received a penalty for payments to be made in 2021, based on expected outcomes for a wide variety of treated conditions. While CMS indicated that some of these penalties might be waived or delayed due to the impacts of the Covid pandemic on hospital procedure volumes and revenue, they are indicative of a much larger
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5 Myth-Busting New Hospital ADT Notification Requirements
When doctors know their patients have been to the hospital, they can act fast to provide needed support. Widespread use of hospital event notifications is associated with all kinds of health benefits, including a 10 percent decrease in readmissions for Medicare beneficiaries. These event notifications are one of the simplest, easiest (most-bipartisan!), and most impactful changes we can make to improve patient outcomes in U.S. healthcare. To this goal, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
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Unite Us Expands Social Determinants of Health Platform to 6 States
What You Should Know: - Unite Us, the tech company building coordinated care
networks nationwide announced a significant expansion to its partnership with
Nebraska Health Information Initiative (NEHII), a health information exchange,
to six additional states. - This growing partnership aims to break down existing obstacles between
clinical and social service providers to allow for improved SDoH workflows, comprehensive,
whole-person care with trackable outcomes and data, and the creation
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The COVID-19 Data Challenges Facing Payers
Both payers and providers can benefit from the same or similar high-quality data and can work together to provide the best possible services to patients with COVID-19 while avoiding overloading the healthcare system. The key is to use combined payer, clinical, and social data plus technology such as telehealth and artificial intelligence (AI). Payer Perspective on COVID-19 The overriding concern for payers during the COVID-19 crisis is the need to support member health. During an
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HHS Announces Investments for STAR HIE Program to Support State and Local Public Health Agencies
What You Should Know: - HHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) will award up to five 5 cooperative
agreements under the Strengthening
the Technical Advancement and Readiness of Public Health Agencies via Health Information Exchange
(STAR HIE) Program. The U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services (HHS) today issued a Notice of Funding Opportunity to expand and
accelerate innovative
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Using HIEs to Prepopulate Forms Improves Public Health Disease Reporting, Study Finds
What You Should Know: - A new study from Regenstrief Institute and Indiana University shows that using electronic health information exchanges (HIE) to prepopulate forms for notifiable disease reports increases reporting and completeness of information. - The system extracts data from the Indiana Health Information Exchange and fills in the information fields on the official state reporting form. - The form is delivered to an ambulatory care clinic using the HIE network, acting as a
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Redox, Curative Partner to Connect COVID-19 Test Results to Public Health Depts.
What You Should Know: - Curative and Redox have found a way to easily send COVID-19 test results to state officials for reporting, contact tracing programs, and to inform policies as regions move through phases for re-opening the economy. - Since formalizing the partnership in May, the duo has kicked off projects with 24 states, with two, Illinois and Delaware, now fully live. - In this novel use case, Curative uses the Redox API to allow for a secure, efficient flow of data between
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