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MidSouth eHealth Alliance Inks Long-Term Deal for HIE Continuance

Last month, Memphis-based MidSouth eHealth Alliance (MSeHA) signed a multi-year contract with Informatics Corporation of America (ICA) to provide a commercial solution for continued health information exchange (HIE) capabilities.

The new deal follows a 6-year Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) grant MSeHA was awarded in 2004, in collaboration with the Vanderbilt Medical Center’s Regional Informatics team to develop data sharing capability within the Memphis community. The primary goal: assisting with the management of the “safety net” population within the Memphis community.

ICA is a spinoff of Vanderbilt Medical Center, established to commercialize innovative technology developed in-house for the healthcare industry. The company now provides a comprehensive cost-effective, proven HIE solution designed to facilitate decision-making and improve patient outcomes to hospitals, IDNs, communities and states.

Burt Waller, chairman of the MSeHA board and CEO of Christ Community Health Services in Memphis, said as the grant-funded demonstration period moved to a close, MSeHA discussed with ICA the feasibility of migrating from the demonstration software platform to ICA’s CareAlign™ product. CareAlign™ constructs a longitudinal patient record and delivers provider/patient portals, secure clinical communication, NHIN compliant interoperability, EHR-lite and population management tools.
 
Inking the multi-year contract, he said, represents “a significant step for the MSeHA as it moves from the five years of success supported by the Memphis-based healthcare participants and Vanderbilt’s Regional Informatics team to a self- sustaining HIE with expanded capabilities to meet the new ARRA HITECH requirements and evolving healthcare reform legislation.”

Waller added “this transition shows that demonstration dollars can successfully sow seeds of ongoing achievements at a local, state and regional level (and represents) a new era of ownership, accountability and sustainability.”

So far, MSeHA has logged more than 7 million encounters, or 130,000 per month, for nearly 3 million total patients. Other milestones include an aggregated longitudinal medical record available at all 14 emergency departments and all participating primary-care locations; an aggregated database containing nearly 42 million chart documents, including medical information such as acute care discharge, emergency department and outpatient encounter summaries, radiology reports and lab results; and readily available data for use by approved MSeHA members when treating and caring for patients.

The Memphis healthcare facilities that serve the “safety net” community include 16 hospitals with 14 emergency rooms and 16 primary care sites. The facilities’ clinical information resides in a variety of healthcare information systems, including AllScripts, HeartLab, NextGen, Cerner IDX, RxClaim, HBOC McKesson, HealthPRO and Meditech MAGIC.

ICA CEO Gary Zegiestowsky said he recognizes “the hard work, expertise and collaboration that occurred during the formation, solution development, deployment and support of the demonstration over the past five years between the MSeHA participants and the Regional Informatics team.”

Waller called the work accomplished by the Vanderbilt Regional Informatics team, ICA and MSeHA “an example of how healthcare information can be managed to control costs and help improve patient care by using aggregated data to identify specific medical conditions, determine corresponding treatment patterns, and provide the groundwork for quality healthcare reporting.”

Zegiestowsky said the transition of moving from demonstration project to commercial HIE model should be smooth.

Tags:

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), Burt Waller, Christ Community Health Services, Gary Zegiestowsky., Informatics Corporation of America, MidSouth eHealth Alliance, MSeHA

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