Big health systems to promote connectivity
Geisinger Health System, Group Health Cooperative, Intermountain Healthcare, Kaiser Permanente and the Mayo Clinic will join together to promote sharing of electronic health data as part of a new organization called the Care Connectivity Consortium. The formal launch is set for 9 a.m. EDT Wednesday at the National Press Club in Washington, and the event will be webcast here.
According to a media advisory, the Care Connectivity Consortium is “a historic interoperability collaboration among five of the nation’s leading health systems to securely share electronic health information and best practices.” Executives from the organizations will be on hand to “will discuss the goals of the consortium, how sharing electronic health data supports high quality, patient-centered care, and the possibility of sharing electronic data in a secure environment.”
It sounds intriguing, but the five participants don’t have much geographic overlap, save for Kaiser’s reciprocal care agreement with Group Health in the Seattle area. Don’t expect any overnight miracles.
That aside, I’d really like to know the standards they’ll be using for data sharing. If they pick something that’s unformatted text, à la Blue Button, this initiative might be doomed to failure.
UPDATE 12:30 p.m. CDT: A publicist for the consortium tells me that the health systems will be following NHIN protocols for data sharing.
I see potential here to lean on EMR vendors (espec Epic) and perhaps jointly develop cross platform apps to leverage interoperable data and workflow.
Health information exchange (HIE) is nothing but an facility in which Transmission of Health related data is done.HIE is also relates with the HIO , HIT and NHIN(some of the major standards from the U.S. Government). I am not totally agree with this term of Transmission of Healthcare information between HIE and Patients. Whatever your wrote that wiki said, That’s all lye under information. where as to meet the requirements of the HIE…. there are certain rules and regulations like HIE has been developed to improve the Healthcare Delivery and Information Exchange, so that one can come to know where we are lying. I think before raising any voice we have to wait for all other people’s view; So that it will be clear that what they think on this topic.
I think CCC could yield benefits in three areas. None of these are related to the prospect of sharing a single patient’s data between any of the five Consortium members. Lack of geographic overlap makes this highly unlikely. KP and GHC won’t have common members in Seattle area b/c KP is an HMO. Consortium members may seek to exchange data at a global level, but will probably do so after aggregation and analysis, not on a per record basis. Such exchange of actual records would probably run afoul of HIPAA.
Benefit 1) Exchange of best demonstrated practices for data sharing as driver of quality improvement – Each Consortium member has continuous care quality improvement program based on extensive HCIT/EMR infrastructure, widespread data-sharing amongst providers, and patient engagement. Specific programs vary widely. MC could teach KP about use of social media to engage patients, KP could teach GHC about use of registries to manage chronic disease at population level, IHC could teach GHS about developing and using clinical operating guidelines to improve quality and reduce costs.
Benefit 2) Identify organization-dependent variations in care connectivity approaches – Consortium members are different organizations. KP = HMO, IHC = IDN, GHC = non-profit consumer-governed health system with plan (cooperative structure), GHS = physician-led regional health system (patterned after Mayo), with own plan, MC = not-for-profit medical practice and research group. The types of data shared, who the data is share with and where those individuals are located (geographic and organization), and who controls the data, who benefits from cost reductions and improved patient health, these and numerous other factors related to the data and how it’s used and shared can be examined in a variety of types of healthcare organizations. This increases the applicability of the findings to more HCOs.
Benefit 3) CCC > sum of its parts – Consortium members have been on cutting edge of HCIT/EMR implementation, data sharing, and use of data to drive cost reductions and care improvements. The Consortium will focus attention on what unites its 5 disparate members – excellence in care based on shared data. The Consortium and coverage of its activities will (ideally) elevate the quality of discourse on EMR adoption and health data exchange, and concretely demonstrate the possible benefits of EMR and HDE.