A driving force
throughout modern medicine is and will continue to be technology.
It provides physicians with information-rich, easy-access
systems that supply quick answers for better patient care.
HealthLink Information Exchange (HIEx™)
is one such system—and more.
HIEx™ was inspired, designed, and initially developed
to meet the immediate critical need for patient information
about the un- and underinsured throughout the Miami Valley
for more than 11,000 patients. After the sudden closure of
Dayton’s Franciscan Medical Center in 2000, a multidisciplinary
team working through HealthLink Miami Valley and the Center
for Healthy Communities recognized a serious need for a centralized
data repository that could be securely accessed by many health
care providers in a variety of clinical settings. Development
of the system was originally funded through a grant from
the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
“The HIEx™ system is basically an electronic
warehouse for patient centric health information,” says
Mary Crimmins, M.A., research associate for Wright State
University Department of Community Health. This “warehousing” of
information provides the capability to electronically move
clinical information between health care information systems
while maintaining the integrity of the information being
exchanged. In HIEx™ this process is validated on each
and every entry through electronic recording of time, date,
and who entered specific information into the patient record.
It also provides users with a secure HIPPA compliant audit
trail for data viewing and entry.
HIEx™ is built to the standard of the Continuity of
Care Record developed by the American Society for Testing
and Measurement for health information exchange. It also
uses the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS®) developed
by the National Institutes of Health, National Library of
Medicine. Because these national “gold standards” are
used in the system’s development, HIEx™ is now
garnering attention from various state agencies and from
other communities interested in health information exchange. Lehigh
Valley Hospital in Allentown Pennsylvania is looking at HIEx™ as
a possible model for use in its region. Regional Health Information
Organizations (RHIOs) are hubs that will provide the building
blocks for the Nationwide Health Information Network. Epidemiologists
have long recognized the advantage of such
hubs. “This centralized system will help in faster
communication of reportable diseases. The hubs will help
to consolidate data, and assist local health organizations
diagnose and report possible health alerts more quickly,” states
Kate Cauley, Ph.D., director for the Center for Healthy Communities
and associate professor of community health, who has also
served on the Governor’s steering committee for health
information technology, and has worked, along with Crimmins,
on the Ohio team for the National Health Information Security
and Privacy Collaborative.
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“HIEx™ is a low cost solution. The system is
designed to be flexible so that it can be used however you
need to use it. It is set up according to national standards
that will be required for governing how shared information
is transmitted. That is the true value of a Continuity of
Care Record,” says Dr. Cauley.
The overall goal of this information warehousing is to facilitate
access to and retrieval of clinical patient data, and to
provide safer, more timely, efficient, patient care leading
to reduction of errors, reduction of time and resources spent
on information exchange, and thereby reduction in the overall
cost of medical care in today’s pinched health care
economy.
“We are working with physicians to make this system
work for physicians,” states Dr. Cauley. “This
tool was created through one of our state institutions (Wright
State University), and in affiliation with our local medical
school.”
The Physicians’ Charitable Foundation foresaw the
value of the system and provided a grant to HIEx™ to
help put HIEx™ in the hands of health professionals.
School nurses at the Dayton Public Schools use the system
to record clinic visits, track immunizations and medication
use. CareSource, a nonprofit Medicaid managed health care
plan serving Medicaid consumers in Ohio, works with HIEx™ to
improve well child physicals in the public schools.
HIEx™ is now sustained by annual subscriptions that
currently cost $1,000 per year per user. Interested physicians
and their practices are provided with a free trial user account
so they can make use of and see the possibilities of the
system. “With the system currently housing more than
55,000 records for more than 20,000 households inside the
Miami Valley, most new trial users say, “Wow, this
is exactly the information I need!” states Crimmins.
Warehousing health care information seems to be on the horizon
for secure medical patient information exchange. How patient
care systems are to do this securely and effectively is the
question. The locally developed HIEx™ is one system
that has and is developing into a usable, cost-effective
solution for everyone. “This system seems to have infinite
potential, and we are anticipating great possibilities for
the future,” says Dr. Cauley.
For more information or for a trial
membership to use HIExTM in your office, contact Mary Crimmins,
Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine, Department
of Community Health
(937) 775-1122 or
E-mail: mary.crimmins@wright.edu
Visit
the website: med.wright.edu/chc/hiex
By: Nancy Harker |
