The annual expenditure of the healthcare industry in the United States is nearly $3 trillion, and most experts believe billions of dollars are wasted due to inefficiency. In order to address this and many other critical issues, healthcare facilities are rapidly implementing information and communications technology (ICT). Although technology is capable of resolving some of these problems, the lack of cooperation or interoperability is limiting its full potential in the space. In light of this, ICA, a provider of strategic interoperability technology, has announced that it will be connecting its interoperability platform with the MEDITECH EHR system.
The Newton Medical Center, based in Kansas, is currently participating in the Kansas Health Information Network (KHIN) with the MEDITECH EHR. The collaboration between the three organizations is allowing for the exchange of continuity of care documents (CCDs) through Cross-Enterprise Document Sharing (XDS).
By connecting each care system with the CareAlign interoperability platform, the care delivery network in Kansas will be able to access critical patient information and exchange this data with other facilities to improve the overall care of patients.
“The connection to the MEDITECH platform is a significant milestone for KHIN and demonstrates our successful transition from data testing to production by using the latest technology. This offers providers in our network access to critical patient information for improved information exchange and overall care delivery,” said Laura McCrary, executive director of KHIN.
The ICA technology will help integrate EHR systems from multiple facilities and service providers, along with MEDITECH, even if they are not part of health information exchanges (HIEs). The ICA platform has been successfully tested by MEDITECH and 25 other EHR vendors through ICAetc., an industry-wide service for interoperability testing.
The success of the healthcare industry depends on using the available data to provide better care for the patient while saving money. By establishing a standards-based solution for aggregating patient information and using that information more effectively, healthcare facilities around the country will be able to better achieve this objective. The strategic interoperability ICA provides gives organizations the ability to share information, improve patient care and maximize reimbursement.
