Kansas Health Information Network (KHIN) and interoperability Tech Company ICA achieve industry first, connecting 81 health care organizations with 17 different EHR systems across 85,000 square miles.
Kansas Health Information Network (KHIN), a health information exchange organization (HIO) reaching three million Kansans and ICA, a healthcare information technology company that helps healthcare providers impact the way care teams connect and healthcare is delivered has connected 81 healthcare organization together in Kansas to share critical health and behavioral health information. This achievement expands the ability to collect and securely share patient health information across a varied network of participants with disparate electronic health record systems.
“This is a ‘first of firsts’ for ICA and KHIN,” says Gary Zegiestowsky, chief executive officer of ICA. “We do not believe any other HIE vendor or HIO has this many connections across disparate organizations and systems. It’s also a perfect case study of how interoperability can and should work on a broad scale.”
KHIN and ICA began working toward this goal three years ago, when they first set out to ensure KHIN was able to exchange Continuity of Care documents across all its participants. Through ICA’s Care Align interoperability platform, KHIN is able to integrate data from most health care providers with an EHR product that is certified by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC).
“While other public HIOs struggle with sustainability, KHIN is setting the stage for viability. We are now able to provide essential services to our participants to help meet Meaningful Use Transition of Care requirements and support broad care coordination efforts. With the ICA technology, we are able to connect most Kansas providers thus increasing the amount of data available as well as the number of provider organizations who can access and use the data to improve patient care,” says Laura McCrary Ed.D, Executive Director.
The ability to electronically exchange health information is a basic and critical need in improving health care in the United States. Through electronic exchanges, healthcare providers know what medications or procedures their patients have received in other facilities which allows them to provide safer care to their patients in a more efficient manner.
KHIN has emerged as one of the largest and most successful HIOs in the country, as reflected in the number of provider participants and the variety of integrations with electronic health records. KHIN also supports Kansas health care providers through connections to Kansas public health databases including the immunization registry, cancer registry, infectious disease registry, electronic lab reporting for reportable diseases and was the first HIO to send data to the CDC for syndromic surveillance.
About KHIN
The Kansas Health Information Network, Inc. (KHIN) is a Kansas not for profit organization with founding members that include the Kansas Medical Society and the Kansas Hospital Association. KHIN provides health information exchange services, including DIRECT messaging and query based exchange. KHIN also provides all Kansas patients a personal health record at no cost and KHIN serves as the transport layer for the Kansas public health registries. KHIN has over 750 member organizations representing hospitals, clinics, federally qualified health centers, community mental health centers, substance abuse providers and others. For more information regarding KHIN, please go to the KHIN website at http://www.khinonline.org.
About ICA
ICA is a leading provider of strategic interoperability and intelligent care coordination solutions for the healthcare market – providers, payers, and accountable care organizations; and is one of the few independent HIE vendors. With its state-of -the-art CareAlign® platform, ICA offers true care coordination technology that connects disparate healthcare enterprises regardless of the technologies already in place. CareAlign delivers a flexible architecture to connect, collect, consume and intelligently distribute patient information through standard data transport protocols and custom methods for use in EHRs, third party applications, and ICA’s proprietary applications. CareAlign aggregates a wide range of information and supports analytic needs associated with population health management, transitions of care communication, re-admissions reduction, meaningful use requirements and PCMH/ACO operations.
