HealtHIE Nevada, the nonprofit, statewide, community-based health information exchange (HIE), has been upgraded recently to improve functionality and add new features to enhance clients’ experience. Current HIE participants are being migrated from the old system to this upgraded platform.
HealtHIE Nevada, the nonprofit, statewide, community-based health information exchange (HIE), has been upgraded recently to improve functionality and add new features to enhance clients’ experience. Current HIE participants are being migrated from the old system to this upgraded platform. All new clients will automatically receive the benefits of the upgraded system.
The HIE now has more capabilities and methods to deliver laboratory reports, radiology reports and images, along with greater filtering granularity and detail. The HIE Web Access application, the Web-based portal into the HIE, has also been outfitted with improved usability, including a streamlined appearance and navigation to display the longitudinal patient record. These enhancements provide more detail for providers to make better-informed decisions for their patients with improved efficiency and effectiveness.
In addition to the improvement of existing functionality, the upgrade provides new ways to interact with the exchange. The HIE now offers Direct Secure Messaging capabilities, along with the previously offered electronic health record (EHR) interfaces, to provide true interoperability and connectivity with HIE Web Access. The upgrade also provides the ability to connect to the Nationwide Health Information Network (NwHIN), opening access to Veteran’s Affairs and Department of Defense patient information to provide a comprehensive view of the patient’s health history. Finally, the upgrade allows the HIE to provide a wide range of notifications, including hospital admissions and discharges, notifications about physician office visits, and laboratory and radiology results and reports.
These new functionalities enable point-to-point delivery of clinical patient information to other providers of care, medical educators and consultations for a patient, supporting the ability to meet the electronic referrals requirement of meaningful use. Access to national data sources increases the view of the patient’s medical history, and notifications enable providers to understand patient patterns and needs earlier to promote interventions in the changing pay-for-value environment.
Participants will need to migrate to the upgraded system to have full access to the HIE and the data contained within. Access to the old HIE environment will end after September 2016. Users will no longer be able to access patient records via HIE Web Access unless they have completed the online training course and registered for a new username and password. Interoperability and receipt of records directly into EHR technology will cease for users who have not upgraded to the new platform. Finally, as clients move to the upgraded HIE, data added to the old environment will dwindle as the upgraded environment grows.
The HealtHIE Nevada support desk is designed to enable the support staff to work more efficiently and effectively to meet the needs of our users. To consistently meet the variety of needs of our users, we employ a reliable tickThe HealtHIE Nevada support desk is designed to enable the support staff to work more efficiently and effectively to meet the needs of our users. To consistently meet the variety of needs of our users, we employ a reliable ticketing system that assists the support staff in providing excellent customer service that our users have come to expect.
When the support desk receives a ticket, the issue is automatically logged and assigned a case number, at which point the user will receive a confirmation that their email has been received and the issue has been assigned to one of our specialists. The convenience of having an automated ticketing system helps both support staff and users streamline communication and sends timely updates on the progress of the request.
Here are five ways a support desk ticket helps you:
1. It helps to work more efficiently
Keeping track of all submitted issues in one place allows for quicker response and resolution times. Emails aren’t lost in individual inboxes, and issues can continued to be worked by any of the support staff regardless of the initial assignment. Support staff share the knowledge set for all issues allowing for faster turn-around of future issues.
2. It prioritizes tasks
A ticket system is specifically designed to organize reported issues and keep track of the progress, as different problems require different priorities. When the support specialist can easily visualize all the tickets in the queue, it helps to prioritize their work and important tickets are less likely to fall through the cracks.
3. It helps to tracks repeat issues
Working with many users across multiple health care organizations, it is not unusual to find recurring problems or questions. When this happens, the support specialist can quickly search old tickets, and find the solution to quickly solve the issue based on work done previously.
4. It helps us to multitask
HealtHIE Nevada has a busy support desk, and takes pride in assisting our users in a timely matter. To consistently meet your needs, the support desk prioritizes and organizes all issues as they are submitted, while simultaneously moving forward with issues they are currently troubleshooting. Timely resolution is of the utmost importance and we strive to meet your expectations daily.
5. It keeps all details in one location
When troubleshooting, it is very beneficial to have all the relevant information in one location, cutting down on time the support team would spend searching for applicable information to deal effectively with issues. The time saved translates to faster resolution of a problem for you.
You can contact HealtHIE Nevada support by creating a ticket directly from our website , send an email to HIESupport@HealthInsight.org, or if you prefer, call us at 855-484-3443 and select option 1. We’ll take it from there!
On May 19, the HealtHIE Nevada User Group convened for the quarterly meeting at HealthInsight Nevada.
Training Specialist Tom Cooper reviewed the new HIE-Learning Portal and discussed how it can help users to navigate Web Access on their own time, via self-help videos and quizzes.
Project Manager Summer Sweeney presented the new HealtHIE Nevada website and demonstrated the site’s search functions and updated list of HIE participants; and Project Manager Aaron Hubbard led a discussion on direct messaging, an exciting upcoming feature of the HIE.
HealtHIE Nevada’s new direct messaging will offer a standard, secure messaging method, providing efficient point-to-point exchange of timely patient data. Via the direct messaging system, a primary care provider can send clinical data to a specialist to initiate a referral and the specialist can send completed consultation notes and data back to the referring provider.
In addition to in-person attendance, the User Group members were able to meet online using Adobe Connect. In a new development for this series, there were two meeting times available to accommodate the schedules of participants.
The next HealtHIE Nevada User Group meeting will be held September 15. Please contact
Kristin Cederlind at kcederlind@healthinsight.org or 702-948-0313 if you wish to be updated on upcoming meetings.
In March 2016, HealtHIE Nevada launched the HIE-Learning Portal, a training site using video courses and quizzes embedded into an open-source Learning Management System (LMS) called Moodle. This online LMS allows HIE users to access and complete training at their convenience.
The HIE-Learning Portal’s training modules are designed to help new users learn about the HIE Web Access program and how to navigate the system. Users will learn why patient consent is necessary, how to manage patient consent and how to receive access to the program.
The comprehensive course enables a new HIE user to gain understanding and quickly begin to use the system, as well as refreshing more seasoned users on the ins and outs of HIE Web Access.
The HIE-Learning Portal is now online, and access is provided during your implementation or your upgrade. Please contact us at HIElearning@healthinsight.org if you would like to learn more about the Portal or if you wish to have access to complete the course content.
In case you hadn’t heard, HealtHIE Nevada has been working over the last year to plan and update the software that makes the HIE run. HIE 2.0 will bring with it some exciting changes and improvements. Among them will be a new master patient index with an improved matching algorithm that will help reduce the incidence of duplicate patient records. Another more obvious and immediate improvement will be the replacement of the Virtual Health Record (VHR) with the Community Patient Profile (CPP). The CPP will offer users an improved and updated user interface that will be easier to navigate, thus saving physicians and staff time finding the information they need to support patients.
We are working hard to make the transition to HIE 2.0 as seamless as possible for our end users. However, to make the complete move from the VHR to the CPP, there are a couple of important things you need to know about.
All users will be required to have a unique email address. In the past, the use of an email address has not been required for access, and as a result, not all users have an email address on file. To use the CPP, new user names and passwords will be issued to all users. These usernames and passwords will require a unique email from all participants. In the coming weeks, HIE project managers will be reaching out to contacts at participating offices to verify the user information on file and make relevant updates, to include requesting an email address from all users.
Users will have to go through training for access to the CPP. The CPP is new and different and we want to make sure all of our users are equipped to use the features and functionality to their greatest potential. To facilitate this, we will require that all users participate in training before being granted access. Once we have confirmed user information and obtained unique email addresses for participants, HIE staff will reach out to share training and education schedules.
Please be watching for emails and phone calls from HealtHIE Nevada in the coming weeks to prepare you for HIE 2.0! Through the end of the year you will be hearing more about additional changes and improvements coming to your existing HealtHIE Nevada services.
Congressman Joe Heck (R, NV-3) is a physician with an extensive background working in emergency medical care at the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada as well as in settings related to his work as a Colonel in the U. S. Army Reserves – serving 3 active duty terms, including a deployment to Iraq. HealthInsight Nevada staff recently met with the Congressman to discuss a variety of health care initiatives underway in his district and across the state of Nevada. Because of his background, Dr. Heck expressed a particular interest in learning more about HealtHIE Nevada, the community-based, statewide health information exchange in our State. Dr. Heck described a common emergency situation:
A patient comes to an emergency room. S/he is unknown to the physician. Today, the doctor must interview the patient (if they are conscious or able to answer questions) or the family or individuals who accompany the patient, to learn about possible allergies, their medical history, and medications the individual is taking. Of course, in this type of stressful situation, it is highly likely that the patient and/or their friends and family may not have all of this information, or may forget key pieces of information that could help the physician treat the patient. This is today’s emergency room reality. In the absence of this critical information, the physician will generally order all the blood tests, X-rays, scans, and other examinations that could help her/him make a diagnosis and effectively treat the patient. Of course, this takes time, can be painful to the patient, requires the involvement of numerous hospital staff, and may result in hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in costs.
But imagine another scenario: A patient comes to an emergency department. S/he has consented to having their personal health information shared on the HealtHIE Nevada Health Information Exchange. The physician logs on to a secure website, types in the patient’s name and date of birth, and within seconds, all of the patient’s information (insurance, allergies, current medications) shows up on the screen. In addition, all the results from blood tests, radiology exams (X-ray’s, CAT scans, MRIs), previous doctor visits, and hospital stays are visible to the physician. The physician now has the most up to date and complete medical history on this patient. This may cause him to eliminate some tests that may have recently been conducted, or include tests that a unique medical history might indicate. In either case, this scenario provides the physician with real-time information about the patient; no need to rely on a stressed family member’s recollection or to reorder unnecessary tests. This information gives the physician more accurate and real-time information so s/he can make more timely and better informed decisions at the patient’s bedside. This same kind of immediate information is beneficial to other providers that participate in the HealtHIE Nevada health Information, including primary care doctors who are seeing a patient for the first time in their office, or for a specialist physician who is seeing a patient for a specific concern. After the demonstration of the health information exchange’s capabilities, Dr. Heck expressed that this kind of information would be invaluable to emergency room physicians. He noted that as it is now, physicians do the very best they can with the information available. However, he pointed out that physicians rarely have complete information about a patient’s medical history, allergies, or medications. Consequently, s/he may have to order a number of costly tests and procedures that might be unnecessary if they were equipped with additional patient information from other health care providers (not just the patient and family.) The Congressman indicated that having the information provided by HealtHIE Nevada has the potential to improve a physician’s ability to provide appropriate, timely, and cost effective care to his/her patients.
Here at HealtHIE Nevada we recognize the value added to the Post-Acute Care settings in participating in the Health Information Exchange (HIE). We understand the
day-to-day workflow is different from that of a hospital, physician, or other healthcare setting. HealtHIE Nevada involves our community inplanning the growth of the HIE. We are conducting onsite process observations and focus groups for these settings throughout April 2013. The primary focus is to learn about your workflow in the Post-Acute care setting. By understanding the workflow in your facility, i.e. the admit, discharge, and referral process, we will be able to customize the services offered by HealtHIE Nevada.
In mid-April we will host focus groups to summarize the results of the onsite process observations, discuss popular EHR’s in post-acute settings, and identify barriers and solutions to implementing the HIE. In keeping with that tradition, we would like to schedule one or two appointments to have a member of our staff visit your facility and observe. If you would like to recommend your facility or any other, provide us with contact details. We look forward to sharing the outcomes of this process with you in an upcoming edition of the HealtHIE Nevada Chronicle.
Renown Health and Gastroenterology Consultants successfully connect to Health Information Exchange
Las Vegas, NV – HealtHIE Nevada, in partnership with the Nevada healthcare community and its stakeholders, announced today that Renown Health and Gastroenterology (GI) Consultants in Reno, Nevada have successfully connected to the HealtHIE Nevada Health Information Exchange (HIE).
The HIE is providing GI Consultants with the most up to date lab information available from Renown Health. It enables their physicians to receive real-time patient information instantly, automatically, and securely at the point of care. The lab data come directly from the HIE and radiology and transcription data are ready to access. In April 2012, Renown Health pushed more than 500,000 transactions to the HIE. Over 300,000 transactions have been pushed to date in May.
Dr. Craig Sande of Gastroenterology Consultants stated, “Many physician groups in our region have begun to use electronic medical records. Unfortunately, the data generated is not easily shared with disparate systems. Gastroenterology Consultants working in conjunction with HealthInsight, and Renown Regional Medical Center have beta tested a Health Information Exchange, which will solve this problem by providing the seamless transfer of health information between the disparate systems. We are excited by the progress and confident that the capability will lead to improved health of all Nevadans through timely and accurate access to patient’s health information.”
The initial phase of the HIE takes the data from the issuing organization and passes it through the HIE, which then automatically routes it to the healthcare facility associated with the patient. Additional hospitals, physician offices, laboratories, and imaging centers from across the state of Nevada are slated to begin sharing information in the next couple of months. Future phases of the HIE include an expansion of the line of services, data inquiry, and data analytics capabilities.
“Now that the concept is proven, we look forward to many other independent healthcare providers joining this HIE,” said Chuck Scully, Chief Information Officer, Renown Health. “Having everyone participate in this single shared utility will bring the greatest value to all participants at the lowest possible cost. Renown Health is proud to be one of several independent organizations that have worked cooperatively to bring this important resource to our state and our community.”
About HealtHIE Nevada
HealtHIE Nevada is a newly incorporated private, Nevada non-profit, community-based organization dedicated to connecting the Nevada healthcare community by providing real time, secure, and accurate exchange of clinical information to improve the quality and continuum of healthcare for the patient.
In July of 2011, a contribution from Southwest Medical Associates, Inc. partially funded the HIE’s launch and initial operations. Additional support was provided by founding members of the HIE: Renown Health, Reno; Catholic Healthcare West, Southern and Northern NV; Sunrise Health System, the Valley Health System, Nevada Orthopedic and Spine Center, University Medical Center of Southern Nevada, and Healthcare Partners, Las Vegas, Nevada. Visit the HealtHIE Nevada Website at healthienevada.org.
Management of HealtHIE Nevada and its services are performed by HealthInsight, a recognized leader in quality improvement; transparency and public reporting; health information technology programs; healthcare system delivery and payment reform efforts; and human factors science research and application. HealthInsight has offices in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Las Vegas, Nevada, and Salt Lake City, Utah. Visit the HealthInsight website at www.healthinsight.org.
