How does a healthcare network connect data from more than 1,000 employed and private practice physicians, three community hospitals, a multi-disciplinary care management team and an IT team all while reporting required information as part of accountable care organizations?
That was the challenge facing the Greater Rochester (N.Y.) Independent Practice Association, a membership-based organization affiliated with the Rochester Regional Health System.
GRIPA and its affiliates, like the rest of the healthcare industry, is figuring out ways to respond to the changing healthcare landscape, including new quality reporting demands and federal incentives such as meaningful use. GRIPA is participating in the Medicare Shared Services Program as well as commercial accountable care arrangements, making the need for connected clinical information even greater, says Jamie Hayslip, CIO of GRIPA.
"We had previously good integration with Rochester Regional Health and their systems, but we needed a way to collect that clinical information from some of the private practice providers and offices that were using different systems," Mr. Hayslip says.
GRIPA had five main business goals: Securely exchange clinical information between care providers, integrate clinical information into one central data repository, manage clinical records and documents, meet quality measures for accountable care setups and analyze data to find patterns to help improve population health.
In total, providers in the community were using approximately 20 different EHR platforms that needed to be connected. To connect the platforms and glean the needed information, GRIPA selected DataMotion's Direct Secure Messaging solution and Infor's Cloverleaf Cloud Health Information Exchange.
The new solutions allow clinicians to securely exchange patient information with other care providers. Cloverleaf then combines the patient information to create one fully rounded patient profile.
"Today's healthcare industry demands that organizations better connect to the medical community and streamline disparate systems while providing a shared view of the patient's record," said Mike Poling, vice president of healthcare at Infor, in a statement.
Now, with more comprehensive information on individuals, care providers are able to identify gaps in care and develop quality initiatives to boost care quality. Mr. Hayslip says this is the direction in which he envisions his ideal IT department eventually reaching.
"My ideal vision is that we spend less time in the future on the data integration end of things and more time on the analytics and business intelligence end of the IT spectrum," Mr. Hayslip says. "I really get excited when we have discoveries through data analysis that really benefit patient healthcare quality. That's the exciting part of IT."
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