UHIN

Author: UHIN

We’ve Got You Covered in the Mountain West: New Link Between QHN and UHIN!

by UHIN

New Connections and Better Coverage

UHIN and Western Colorado’s Quality Health Network (QHN) are pleased to announce a more tightly linked connection between our health information exchanges which will improve patient outcomes, improve efficiencies, and help reduce costs in a shared coverage area throughout many parts of Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming that includes more than a 100 hospitals and thousands of providers. The new real-time delivery of data between the two health information exchanges allows for clinical event data to be automatically delivered to the electronic health record (EHR) systems of providers who have a treating relationship with the patient and have subscribed to the services (Not subscribed? Contact our CHIE Team to get started!). The information will also be made available via query for authorized providers who may have a treating relationship with the patient in the future.  

The ongoing patient data exchange between UHIN and QHN is initially triggered when a patient visits any of the Provider Participants of either QHN or UHIN. The health data delivered includes but is not limited to admission and discharge information, diagnostic laboratory and radiology results as well as care episode documentation from Emergency Room, Surgeries, as well as other Procedural Reports.   

While both QHN and UHIN have been exchanging health data via query/response methods exchange since 2016, the stakeholders of both organizations have long hoped for the automated delivery of clinical data directly into providers’ health record systems. The new exchange modalities make this a reality and have been in production since May of 2021.  The results of the exchange is already proving positive for both patients and providers. 

Let’s Show You How It Works

Meet Travis. Travis lives in Grand Junction, CO. He has high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, is a bit overweight and a diabetic. He decided to exercise more and loves to bike, but he took a hard fall mountain biking in eastern Utah and was sent to Moab, UT for medical care. Before this data exchange enhancement, Travis’s Grand Junction doctors may not have known that Travis got hurt, much less where or how he might have been treated or what follow up care might be required to allow for Travis’s return to mountain biking.  With this new exchange modality in place, Travis’ Moab doctor can query UHIN for information about Travis’ pre-existing conditions (including information from his Grand Junction primary care, cardiology, and endocrinology providers) and make better decisions about Travis’ immediate care needs.  

Travis’ Grand Junction doctors are alerted that Travis’ had an accident and details of the care he received in Moab because that information is delivered automatically into the EHR’s of the Grand Junction doctors. Any follow up care Travis receives from the Grand Junction doctors is copied to the Moab doctor’s EHR for as long as the Moab doctor subscribes to Travis’ information. So both sets of physicians can collaborate on the care of Travis and get him back safely riding as soon as possible. 

This is next-level patient centric care collaboration, is automatically triggered by patient care events, with data delivered directly into the EHR’s of treating providers. It means that Travis’s health information automatically follows him wherever he receives care for as long as his providers are subscribed to his information through either through QHN or UHIN. Even without subscription, Travis’ data is still available to treating providers via query/response data exchange between the two health information networks. 

The two organizations have a long history of collaboration and this is just one of the many ways we continue to connect people for better health across Utah and the mountain West. We are Better Together.

Ready to get set up with the CHIE? Contact our team today to Get Started.

Sources:

UHIN Partners on New Joint Venture, BeyondHIE

by UHIN

UHIN will Join Three other Health Care Organizations Poised to Transform Health Care

BeyondHIE.org
Press Release

BOISE, Idaho — Four health care organizations are partnering to create a new company focused on helping health information exchanges (HIEs) and their communities, payers and providers improve health outcomes. The newly formed partnership, known as BeyondHIE, will offer a comprehensive suite of services, technology and project management to support value-based care.  

BeyondHIE, a nonprofit organization, will support health care organizations by bringing together health data partners and enabling that data to be scaled and enhanced. The four companies joining together are Comagine Health, Idaho Health Data Exchange (IHDE), Orion Health and the Utah Health Information Network (UHIN). These industry leaders offer deep expertise in the areas of data quality, utilization, support and delivery. Together, they will provide services that support health care organizations on their journey to improve health care quality, while also assisting with funding of provider connectivity.

“Delivering improved outcomes using health information enables payers and providers to meet the health care needs of the community they serve,” said Brian Chin, chief executive officer at UHIN. “This joint venture can make vital health care data a reality for more communities.”

“We are excited to partner with these key industry leaders striving to improve health outcomes throughout the U.S.,”said Ian McCrae, founder and chief executive officer of Orion Health. “This joint venture will support improvements in population health by making data accessible when and where it can make a difference.”

“This partnership allows us to offer analytic expertise in support of improvement and decision making,” Marc Bennett, Comagine Health’s president and chief executive officer, said. “The potential impact to improve health and create a better health care system is exciting.”

“This partnership supports health systems by bringing together health data partners allowing data to be scaled and enhanced across broad geographies,” Hans Kastensmith, IHDE’s executive director, said.

For more information about BeyondHIE visit: beyondhie.org.

# # #

About BeyondHIE 

BeyondHIE delivers improved outcomes using enhanced secure health care information, enabling payers and providers to meet their patients’ health care needs with the full range of support ensuring outperformance on value-based reporting requirements. BeyondHIE delivers population level aggregated data at the right place and time. BeyondHIE makes consumer health information available when and where you need it; safe, informative, in your clinician’s hands. For more information, please visit beyondhie.org.

About Comagine Health

Comagine Health, formerly Qualis Health and HealthInsight, works collaboratively with patients, providers, payers and other stakeholders to reimagine, redesign and implement sustainable improvements in the health care system. As a trusted, neutral party, we work in our communities to address key, complex health and health care delivery problems. In all our engagements and initiatives, we draw upon our expertise in quality improvement, care management, health information technology, analytics and research. We invite our partners and communities to work with us to improvehealth and redesign the health care delivery system. For more information, please visit comagine.org.

About Idaho Health Data Exchange

Idaho Health Data Exchange (IHDE), a non-profit 501(c)(3) company, is Idaho’s statewide Health Information Exchange, dedicated to meeting the needs of healthcare providers and ensuring that Idaho’s citizens receive the most effective health services possible. To achieve these goals, IHDE is working with a wide-array of stakeholders and actively building a best in breed technology infrastructure to provide access to reliable data and information, combining traditional healthcare data with other data sources to help address the medical, behavioral, and social needs that influence the well-being of Idahoans. For more information, visit https://idahohde.org/.

About UHIN

UHIN is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to creating a more connected healthcare system. At our core, we enable organizations to interoperate with disparate health systems easily and securely, EHRs, PMs and other IT systems. By driving the adoption of innovative technologies and promoting a community of collaboration and inclusiveness, we are bringing together healthcare providers, hospitals, health plans, ACOs, government organizations and more to share vital information critical to their success. Learn more at www.uhin.org.

About Orion Health 

Orion Health is a global, award-winning provider of health information technology, advancing population health and precision medicine solutions for the delivery of care across the entire health ecosystem. Orion Health provides a state-of the art multi-tenanted HIE platform, which has been subscribed to by 4 statewide Health Information Organizations, to support a suite of solutions to enable clinicians to extract meaningful insights and make more accurate decisions about patient care, delivering patient-centered healthcare and quality health outcomes that help patients live a healthier life. Our technology is used by hundreds of thousands of clinicians across the globe to manage the health care of more than 100 million patients. We specialize in open technology systems that seamlessly integrate all forms of health and personal data across the entire health community and present that data back to users in real time to provide optimum patient care. We believe that software needs to do more than serve up data; it needs to provide insights in real time to the people who need it, when they need it. For more information, please 

Spring 2021 Newsletter

by UHIN

A full quarter is in the rear-view mirror now, and it’s already been a fun 2021. UHINt was given its proper send off, MYUHIN is getting rave reviews, The Annual Forum is almost here again, we set up new CHIE connections, and much more.

The biggest news and updates so far:

1

MYUHIN in the spotlight! It’s been a big quarter for our web-based electronic billing platform. Customers love the user-centric design and functionality, and they love our customer success and support teams! The price is set for providers offices who need an exceptional billing tool without wrecking their revenue…

  1. UHINt officially retired – After 20 years we have given UHIN’s original hand-entry claims tool, UHINt, its final ride. All users have been moved over to the new and improved MYUHIN.
  2. Self sign-up & Enrollment appointments – User can now sign up for MYUHIN themselves! For those who need enrollment help, however, will need to work with our Enrollment Team. If you are looking to Enroll with your target payers, user our Calendly scheduler: Schedule with Enrollment Team!
  3. New training videos are available: Watch Here

2

UHIN Annual Forum – May 5, 2021 – Virtual Event

The 2021 Annual Forum is coming and we’ll be officially announcing our Keynote speakers in the next couple of weeks!

This year topics will focus on changes in the Payer landscape and how they affect all players in healthcare, especially as it relates to interoperability. Stay tuned for announcements on our event page here: UHIN Annual Forum

3

CHIE Updates – Since our last update we continue to add new features and data sources to enhance our HIE. Some of the more important updates:

  1. DIRECT update – You can now download a .CSV of ADTs directly from the MYUHIN portal
  2. New Data Sources
  • Wyoming Frontier Information (WYFI) – ADTs (Dec 2020)
  • Rocky Mountain Homecare and Hospice – CCDs (Nov 2020)
  • Bonneville Family Practice – ADT and TRN (transcriptions/progress notes) (Nov 2020)
  • Chesapeake Regional Information System (CRISP) the HIE for Maryland and DC (Nov 2020)
  • Highland Care Center – ADTs (Nov 2020)
  • Pointe Meadow Health and Rehabilitation – ADTs (Nov 2020)

4

Security & Compliance Updates

  1. SOC 2 Type II
  2. FedRamp Compliant

5

UHIN is Hiring!!

We have been adding new members to the UHIN Team like crazy and we still have open positions to fill! Check out our Careers page for updates: UHIN Careers

UHIN Soccer League

Stay up to date on everything happening here at UHIN by subscribing to the UHIN Newsletter and by following us on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIN!

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Hospitals, The CHIE and the CMS Interoperability and Patient Access Rule

by UHIN

Hospitals should prepare now for the new Conditions of Participation

The New CMS Condition of Participation Requires Hospitals to Share E-Notifications

What does this new rule mean for hospitals?

On March 9, 2020, CMS announced new Admit, Discharge, and Transfer (ADT) Electronic Notifications Conditions of Participation¹ that left many questioning what the hospitals would be responsible for and what they would need to do in order to become compliant by the May 1, 2021 deadline. 

Here is a quick summary of the rule and a compliance checklist to help!

The new CMS Condition of Participation requires all hospitals, psychiatric hospitals, and critical access hospitals utilizing an electronic medical records system or other electronic administrative systems, (which is conformant with the content exchange standard HL7 v2.5.1) to make a reasonable effort to send real-time electronic notifications:

  • At the point of inpatient and observation admission, discharge, transfer and at emergency department presentation or discharge
  • To every patient’s established Primary Care Provider (PCP), established primary care practice group or entity, other practitioners/practice groups/entities identified by the patient as primarily responsible for his or her care, and applicable post-acute providers who need to receive notification for treatment, care coordination, or quality improvement purposes
  • Containing at a minimum: patient name, treating practitioner name, and sending institution name

CHIE Alerts: The Simplest, Most Comprehensive Solution to Guarantee Electronic Patient Event Notifications are Processed in a Secure and Compliant Manner

Built on UHIN’s trusted network, CHIE Alerts alleviates a hospital’s compliance IT and data-sharing burdens. CHIE Alerts seamlessly delivers ADT e-notifications to providers in a patient’s care continuum, as well as to other requesting community groups. The CHIE manages all the complexities involved with sending the alerts, from executing data sharing agreements with all e-notification recipients, to managing and executing the frequent, real-time changes to a diverse array of patient roster types to track patient/provider attribution. Learn more about our CHIE Alerts suite at https://uhin.org/alerts.

CHIE Alerts

Ready to get set up with CHIE Alerts? Contact our team today to Get Started.

Sources:

¹  CMS Interoperability and Patient Access final rule. 17 Jul. 2020. Accessed 9 Dec. 2020.  https://www.cms.gov/Regulations-and-Guidance/Guidance/Interoperability/index

ONC Announces Unified Specification for Address in Health Care – Project US@

by UHIN

The ONC Addresses Patient Addresses with New Specification

A new standard

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC)  announced Tuesday that it will develop a unified specification for a key element in patient matching – patient address. The announcement came during ONC’s API Year in Review virtual event as a new initiative to standardize how patient addresses are represented in the healthcare ecosystem. The new initiative, called Project US@, will formally launch in early 2021 and brings together the ONC, Health Level 7 (HL7), the National Council for Prescription Drug Programs (NCPDP), and X12 (along with the other standards development organizations (SDOs) and members of the Health Standards Collaborative (HSC)). 

In a statement by the ONC, Deputy National Coordinator, Steve Posnack, said, “As mundane as address may seem it is often one of the key elements used for the purposes of patient matching and linking records.” He also stated, “The project’s goal is to issue a unified, cross-SDO, health care industry-wide specification for representing address within the year.”¹

Many in the healthcare industry have expressed the need for a unified standard around patient address, as the lack of specificity allowed implementers to decide on which format to use. “Without specific constraints to rely on, implementers use a variety of free and commercial third party tools, resources, and methods to help normalize address representations,” said Posnack. “But as we discussed in ONC’s Cures Act Final Rule it has its limits.”

What does this mean for SDOs and patient data stewards across the country?

As an SDO on the local and national level, UHIN is acutely aware of the need for standards to improve patient matching. UHIN’s new master patient index (MPI) has drastically improved patient matching accuracy for its clients, and the hope is that Project US@ will make patient matching even more accurate. 

“With the shift to value-based care it is more crucial that data from different standards be joined to form a holistic view of the patient/member,” said Cody Johansen, Director of HIE at UHIN. “By standardizing address information across multiple SDOs this will both increase the reliability of the data used for matching as well as improve the matching rate across different data types.”

UHIN’s MPI improving patient identity matching

In 2020 UHIN implemented a powerful new patient identity matching solution. The new MPI has resulted in 7.3 Million records cleaned and 965k duplicates resolved.² A new case study with NextGate is available here. 

A new Interoperability Platform to bridge standards

UHIN has a new interoperability platform in development called the Healthcare Platform. Our Healthcare Platform is being built for data-driven workflows, making healthcare analytics accessible and usable and acting as a bridge for all standards. To get updates on the Healthcare Platform visit https://uhin.org/healthcare-platform/.

Sources: 

¹ Posnack, Steve. “Say “Hey!” to Project US@ – a Unified Specification for Address in Health Care.” 1 Dec. 2020, https://www.healthit.gov/buzz-blog/health-it/say-hey-to-project-us-a-unified-specification-for-address-in-health-care

² “CASE STUDY: UHIN Leverages Leading Patient Identification Platform to Drive Quality and Coordination of Care, Support COVID-19 Response.” https://marketing.nextgate.com/acton/fs/blocks/showLandingPage/a/3826/p/p-004c/t/page/fm/0

Top 3 Takeaways from HIT 2020

by UHIN

With the 2020 HIT Conference in the rearview mirror, we wanted to talk a look back at the highlights.

Our Top 3 Takeaways from HIT 2020:

1

The top sessions of the conference by session feedback and attendance were our 3 featured sessions, by Dr. Don Rucker, Dr. Gurpreet Dhaliwal, and Dr. Ajit Singh. Those who registered can see the full session recordings through the WHOVA app. Sessions are also available on our UHIN Stage YouTube page. Some sessions are available to those who weren’t able to attend the event! 

2

We nerded out on FHIR with several in-depth presentations related to the possibilities of FHIR in connecting our healthcare data for interoperability. Check out these three FHIR sessions: 

  1. Integrated FHIR Delivery – https://youtu.be/U5hYy0HALPs
  2. The Evolving Quality Measures Ecosystem – https://youtu.be/61oEjpgDWaE
  3. FHIR Panel with Cambia Grove Innovator Fellowship – https://youtu.be/v6KtEF2vi8A

3

UHIN has a new interoperability platform in the works called the Healthcare Platform. More details coming in 2021, but you can be the first to get updates by subscribing. We’re looking for interested organizations to Build With Us, so visit our Healthcare Platform page for details: https://uhin.org/healthcare-platform/

A “Thank You” Meal for our community COVID-19 testing site teams

by UHIN

This holiday weekend we at UHIN would like to express our gratitude to all of you who are battling this pandemic. As a small token of appreciation, we are sending meals to those at various COVID-19 testing sites in Utah who are working through the holiday on Friday. Healthcare workers are sacrificing in heroic ways during this pandemic. As COVID-19 drags on, it’s important not to forget what our frontline workers are doing.

As new cases continue to rise in Utah, there is even more pressure put on these testing sites. Each worker there is a person who is sacrificing for our community. We hope they know that we are thinking of them and their loved ones, and hope some good BBQ will go a little way towards reminding them of that. 

Thank You and Stay Safe!

The UHIN Family

HHS Extends Compliance Dates for Information Blocking Requirements

by UHIN

HHS Extends Compliance Dates for Information Blocking Requirements

21st Century Cures Act Final Rule deadlines delayed due to pandemic

HHS’ Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology announced this week that they would extend deadlines for their information-blocking rule as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to put pressure on healthcare organizations around the country.

On Thursday, the agency issued a statement detailing the interim final rule which would delay compliance dates until 2021 for information-blocking provisions and health IT certification requirements.

“To be clear, ONC is not removing the requirements advancing patient access to their health information that are outlined in the Cures Act Final Rule,” said Don Rucker, MD, national coordinator for health IT. “Rather, we are providing additional time to allow everyone in the health care ecosystem to focus on COVID-19 response.”

With providers reprioritizing their IT efforts, this move will give healthcare organizations time to comply with the new rule as they simultaneously respond to the pandemic.

In the statement the agency said the move would “[extend] the Program compliance dates beyond those identified in the April 21, 2020, enforcement discretion announcement and [establish] new future applicability dates for information blocking provisions. The interim final rule also adopts updated standards and makes technical corrections and clarifications to the ONC Cures Act Final Rule.”

We have provided links below to the ONC interim final rule that was released earlier in the week, as well as a date grid highlighting important milestones in the rule.

New Applicability and Compliance Dates/Timeframes & Corresponding Provisions

April 5, 2021

  • Information blocking provisions (45 CFR Part 171) 
  • Information Blocking CoC/MoC requirements (§ 170.401)
  • Assurances CoC/MoC requirements (§ 170.402, except for § 170.402(b)(2) as it relates to § 170.315(b)(10)) 
  • API CoC/MoC requirement (§ 170.404(b)(4)) – compliance for current API criteria 
  • Communications CoC/MoC requirements (§ 170.403) (except for § 170.403(b)(1) – where we removed the notice requirement for 2020)

December 31, 2022

  • 2015 Edition health IT certification criteria updates (except for § 170.315(b)(10) – EHI export, which is extended until December 31, 2023)
  • New standardized API functionality (§ 170.315(g)(10))

One Calendar Year Extension

  • Submission of initial attestations (§ 170.406)
  • Submission of initial plans and results of real-world testing (§ 170.405(b)(1) and (2))

Announcement: https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2020/10/29/hhs-extends-compliance-dates-information-blocking-health-it-certification-requirements-21st-century-cures-act-final-rule.html

Fact Sheet: https://www.healthit.gov/cures/sites/default/files/cures/2020-10/IFC_FactSheet_Certification.pdf

Fact Sheet: https://www.healthit.gov/cures/sites/default/files/cures/2020-10/IFC_FactSheet_Information_Blocking.pdf

FAQs: https://www.healthit.gov/curesrule/resources/information-blocking-faqs

2020 HIT Conference

by UHIN

November 10-11 | Virtual 2-Day Event

CONNECTING DATA, UNITING HEALTHCARE

Event Page

This year, HIT will focus on tech and data solutions that connect the healthcare community when they need it most. 

The mission of this year’s HIT conference is to unite technology leaders, doers, and innovators in solidifying interoperability, discovering new ways to connect, and creating meaningful change.

We are tailoring this year’s HIT Conference to industry professionals who are creating, using, or even simply looking for tech solutions for some of healthcare’s biggest roadbloacks. 

Who should attend?

The Annual HIT Conference is geared towards senior leadership and decision makers across the healthcare industry. Executive leadership, c-suite, directors, project leaders and more from any organization that creates, uses, or wants education on healthcare technology & interoperability solutions are welcome at HIT. Policy makers and governmental entities are also encouraged to attend.

Virtual forum. Momentous experience.

The safety of our speakers and attendees is paramount. Our 2020 event will be conducted entirely online, with sessions conducted over video call and a fully-featured event app to allow attendees and sponsors to network, participate in Q&As, and interact with discussion boards and giveaways.

Register Now!

Interested in speaking or sponsoring?
Contact communications@uhin.org for more information.

Speaker Prospectus
Sponsor Prospectus

UHIN Annual Forum 2020

by UHIN

The UHIN Annual Forum is a virtual, half-day event to discuss pressing issues regarding patient data access, interoperability, and the future of healthcare in Utah.

Convening, educating and inspiring our community

As the Utah-designated Health Information Exchange (HIE) and unbiased community convener, we strive to bring critical healthcare discussions to the fore whenever possible. For this year’s forum we invited expert leaders on healthcare data to provide updates on crucial topics. We will also hosted a panel on the future of Utah’s healthcare landscape.

Presentation and Q&A about the New ONC Interoperability Rules (Begins 00:2:26)
Steven Posnack, M.S., M.H.S. Deputy National Coordinator for Health Information Technology
Elise Sweeney Anthony, J.D., Executive Director, Office of Policy at ONC

Taking Interoperability to the Next Level (Begins 00:56:42)
Dave Cassel, Executive Director of Carequality

Implementing the CMS Interoperability Rules with DaVinci (Begins 1:43:00)
Viet Nguyen, MD, Clinical Informaticist at Stratametrics, LLC and Technical Director for HL7 Da Vinci Project

Panel Discussion – Utah’s Healthcare Landscape After the Pandemic (Begins 2:26:14)
Lt. Governor Spencer J. Cox, State of Utah
Michelle McOmber, CEO, Utah Medical Association
Greg Bell, President & CEO, Utah Hospital Association
Nate Checketts, UDOH Deputy Director, Medicaid Director

Any presentation slides UHIN has permission to share are linked below.

Taking Interoperability to the Next Level