[November 28, 2012] |
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Kansas Health Information Network (KHIN) and ICA Begin Sharing Data with CDC to Monitor Population Health
TOPEKA, Kan. & NASHVILLE, Tenn. --(Business Wire)--
Kansas
Health Information Network (KHIN) and ICA,
a leading provider of interoperability technology that enables care
coordination and health information exchange (HIE), announced today that
they have begun sharing anonymous patient data with BioSense,
a public health system that tracks hospital emergency department visits,
enabling public health professionals to monitor a broad array of
potential public health threats. The BioSense system is coordinated by
the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and was recently
re-designed to greatly improve the information provided by the system
and to promote standardization and collaboration across states.
"KHIN provides de-identified health information from Kansas patients to
BioSense in real time," said Laura McCrary, Executive Direct of KHIN.
"This data allows public health partners to rapidly assess potential
health threats in Kansas more quickly than in the past when it was
necessary to rely on phone calls or fax. This exchange also helps Kansas
providers meet a Stage 2 Meaningful Use requirement to electronically
share syndromic surveillance data with public health agencies."
KHIN aggregates health information from healthcare providers across the
state of Kansas in an area that covers 85,000 square miles and includes
a population of approximately three million.
"BioSense has a lot of potential to provide data in a more efficient
manner as well as additional information we have not been able to attain
previously," said Charles Hunt, State Epidemiologist and Director of the
Bureau of Epidemiology and Public Health Informatics (News - Alert) at the Kansas
Department of Health and Environment. "The utilization of the HIE to
submit data to BioSense in Kansas has brought us more quickly to the
point where we can begin monitoring patient health in the aggregate to
further improve outcomes in our state," Hunt said. "Working in
conjunction with the CDC will provide a timely and cohesive picture at
the state level to detect and characterize public health problems early
and coordinate appropriate responses."
"KHIN put our CareAlign solution to work quickly and effectively in the
development of its statewide HIE," said ICA Chief Executive Officer,
Gary Zegiestowsky. "The enthusiastic uptake by numerous integrated
delivery systems, hospitals and large clinics, and literally thousands
of providers, enabled the CareAlign interoperability platform to perform
one of its more advanced and complex functions: monitoring and managing
the health of a large population. KHIN's effort with CDC's BioSense
program will become a case study in how health technology can truly
improve the health of large and broad populations from which the rest of
the country can learn."
About The Kansas Health Information Network (KHIN)
KHIN's mission is to improve health care quality, coordination and
efficiency through the exchange of health information at the point of
care utilizing a secure electronic network provided by a collaboration
of health care organizations. KHIN is a provider led 501(c)3. It draws
users from a broad geographical area and aligns with state data sources
to support cost effective delivery of services. It supports and
integrates with community and medical trading area efforts to drive care
coordination and workflow changes creating a climate to encourage
innovation. Its goals are to ensure providers, patients and communities
have long-term access to cost effective, sustainable health information
exchange aligned with costs distributed across a broad user base. It
also encourages and removes barriers so communities and regions can
focus on quality improvement, patient centered medical home and
entrepreneurial strategies that effect local health outcomes.
About ICA
Originating from clinical informatics solutions developed within
Vanderbilt Medical Center, ICA's state-of-the-art CareAlign®
interoperability and informatics platform addresses and solves data and
communication challenges for many healthcare entities, including
hospitals, IPAs, IDNs, HIEs, payers and others. CareAlign delivers a
flexible architecture to connect, collect, consume and intelligently
distribute data through Direct, IHE, HL7, and custom methods for use in
EHRs, third party applications, and ICA's applications. CareAlign unites
a wide range of information supporting analytics associated with
population health management, transitions of care communication,
re-admissions reduction, meaningful use requirements and PCMH/ACO
operations. Visit www.icainformatics.com,
and follow us on Twitter,
ICA
HITme Blog, Facebook,
LinkedIn
and YouTube.

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