Newsletter: May 2024 Issue

MAY 2024

For many of us, Memorial Day marks the unofficial start to summer. Hard to believe we’re heading into June! In this month’s newsletter, we look at the importance of resilient, redundant and interoperable systems, the events and webinars coming up, and we attempt to foretell everything that will happen for the rest of the year.

Remember to join us on LinkedIn for frequent news and updates!


The first half of this year was packed with exciting news and rocked by tech incidents. While we can’t predict the future, we can plan a better path ahead

Look into your crystal ball đź”® What are your predictions (big or small) for things to come in healthcare this year? And, what are your goals that you hope to accomplish? We want to hear from you! 


John Lynn and Colin Hung look at where the industry stands just two months following the ransomware attack. For healthcare professionals, this could be a watershed moment for information security, revenue cycle management (RCM) and back-up planning for potential, future incidents.


City connected with blue lines of communication

Our most recent blog post (authored by Brian Chin, UHIN’s CEO) addresses the importance of redundant and resilient healthcare systems, and how they support seamless interoperability in times of crisis. There are, of course, great benefits and challenges when it comes to maintaining interoperability during disaster recovery (see them below👇).


September 13: Utah Medical Association (UMA) annual House of Delegates in Midvale, UT

October 15-17: Civitas Annual Conference in Detroit, MI

​​​​More to come: Stay tuned!


people icons

We’ll host training sessions on the new CHIE platform, specifically for portal users. Stay tuned for more details on our virtual Payer Panels where you can ask questions and get answers from health plan representatives.


May is Mental Health Month. Our partners and customers offer services and solutions that can help, including AARP Utah’s mental health and wellness resources and Valley Behavioral Health’s treatment programs and services for children and youth. We invite you to learn how you can get involved all year by visiting Mental Health America.



Newsletter: April 2024 Issue

APRIL 2024

This month we announced our affiliation with Comagine Health and added new CHIE data sources from CommonSpirit Health. We look forward to growing with our new strategic partners, customers, and you! Keep reading for what else happened in April and what’s coming up next month.​​​​​​

P.S. Follow our LinkedIn page for more frequent news, posts and insights


“Aligning our health care knowledge and expertise through affiliation is a profound opportunity to advance our parallel missions, while delivering greater success to our customers and partners. We have collaborated successfully for more than a decade. As affiliates, UHIN and Comagine Health can serve as a unified force for change in health care for the foreseeable future.”

​​​​​​- Brian Chin, UHIN’s Chief Executive Officer

Keep scrolling for more information on our affiliation.


Comagine logo, UHIN logo, Comagine and UHIN affiliation announcement

We have announced our official affiliation with Comagine Health, a national nonprofit healthcare consulting firm. We have a long history of working together over the last decade on federal and state initiatives to advance electronic health record (EHR) adoption, cost transparency reporting, capacity and functionality of all-payer claims databases (APCDs) and interoperability and surveillance activities. Combining our technology solutions and Comagine Health’s analytic services will enable more actionable health insights and more sustainable, transformational improvements for communities.​​​​​​


CommonSpirit health logo, UHIN logo, New data source CommonSpirit Health

The CHIE continues to add important data sources, providing healthcare professionals with vital medical information when it is needed most. Recently, we’ve onboarded CommonSpirit Health as a data source.


WEDI spring conference

We’re attending the WEDI Spring Conference from May 13 – 16 (virtually). We look forward to learning more from experts, like Aneesh Chopra, about solutions to improve information exchange, enhance care quality, and reduce cost and burden. 

Are you planning to attend online, too?


In addition to online product trainings for our customers, we’re preparing virtual payer panels for later this year. These will be similar to the payer panels you may have attended in previous years at the HIT Conference.


We’re reading the recent CAQH report on the wide differences in administrative transaction costs for generalists, specialists and behavioral health providers. “The medical industry spends an astonishing $83 billion annually on staff time to conduct routine administrative transactions between providers and health plans during and after a patient-provider encounter. Providers shoulder 97 percent of these costs.”



UHIN and Comagine Health Announce Affiliation

Comagine Health, a national nonprofit health care consulting firm, and the Utah Health Information Network (UHIN), a leading health care information technology organization, recently announced they are affiliating. The two organizations have a long history of working together over the last decade on federal and state initiatives to advance electronic health record (EHR) adoption, cost transparency reporting, capacity and functionality of all-payer claims databases (APCDs) and interoperability and surveillance activities. Through this new affiliation, they will be able to become even more powerful drivers for health care improvement.

An affiliation between the two organizations allows UHIN and Comagine Health to each leverage their deep expertise and success in different areas. The affiliation will help both organizations better meet their missions, respond to a changing economic landscape and create greater value for their respective customers.

Comagine Health is a national leader in health care consulting for federal, state and local government agencies as well as privately funded groups. The company is widely recognized for its expertise in quality improvement, care management, data solutions and research and evaluation. Additionally, Comagine Health has a long-standing history with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) serving as the Quality Innovation Network-Quality Improvement Organization (QIN-QIO) and is preparing to bid as a prime contractor for the 13th statement of work to serve as the QIN-QIO in Region 6, covering 14 states from the Pacific Northwest through the Midwest.

“I’m excited about this affiliation. Our two organizations are well-suited to partner together. We have a shared vision of improving health and health care and each organization brings unique talents to the partnership.”

Marc Bennett, Comagine Health’s president and chief executive officer

As a national leader in interoperability, UHIN provides technological solutions and services that simplify data sharing across health plans, providers and other health care parties. UHIN manages Utah’s only health information exchange (HIE), the CHIE, and shares data nationwide through the Patient Centered Data Home® (PCDH). UHIN’s clearinghouse and claims management solutions ensure seamless, secure claims data management and delivery for a national network of health plans, providers and trading partners.

“Aligning our health care knowledge and expertise through affiliation is a profound opportunity to advance our parallel missions, while delivering greater success to our customers and partners. We have collaborated successfully for more than a decade. As affiliates, UHIN and Comagine Health can serve as a unified force for change in health care for the foreseeable future.”

Brian Chin, UHIN’s chief executive officer

The combined strengths of each organization will create opportunities to improve services for current customers and provides a framework for developing new services and products that bring together UHIN’s technology solutions and Comagine Health’s analytic services, enabling more actionable health insights and more sustainable, transformational improvements for communities.

About UHIN

UHIN is dedicated to healthcare interoperability for all. When UHIN sees the barriers and complexities in healthcare, we know we need to act and be a force for change. Our healthcare technology solutions and services empower payers, providers, ACOs, government entities, billing services, and other healthcare partners to collaborate, share information and data, and provide better affordable care for patients. To learn more about UHIN, visit www.uhin.org.

About Comagine Health

Comagine Health 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 improve health and redesign the health care delivery system. For more information, please visit comagine.org.


UHIN Partners on New Joint Venture, BeyondHIE

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

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. â€śThis 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