[November 28, 2012]

Kansas Health Information Network (KHIN) and ICA Begin Sharing Data with CDC to Monitor Population Health

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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