Orange County Hospital CalRHIO HIE Launch in Orange County – Costal Communities Hospital

RHIO activity is beginning to breathe again after a period of silence and this is good to hear. Additional resources will be added but CalOptima is large group for starters until additional payers and insurers are brought online. We are seeing more of this type of activity by leveraging an outside technology vendor rather than trying to build the system in house. There’s nobody happier to have the ability to have access to patient information as the physicians in the ER by not having to guess. If you are a regular reader of this blog there are numerous posts about healthcare data aggregation and how it saves lives, time, and money. BD

Now that patient record access is alive, the next step is to assist and help the patients get some of this information into a PHR (personal health record) as well, so when they are outside the reach of CalRHIO or out of network, a copy of the medical information can be shared and viewed with other medical facilities. BD

The first site in CalRHIO's statewide health information exchange (HIE) system is live in Orange County at Coastal Communities Hospital. As a result of collaboration between CalRHIO and the local HIE effort, the Orange County Partnership Regional Health Information Organization (OCPRHIO), 23 hospital emergency departments over the next five months will have secure electronic access to critical medical information. HIE is a major piece of the Obama Administration's health reform initiative and the focus of the state as it develops a plan to apply for HIE federal stimulus funds.

Initially data will be provided on 380,000 patients enrolled in CalOptima, which covers people in Medi-Cal, Medicare, and Healthy Kids. During 2010, more data sources will be added to the CalRHIO HIE, including prescription history, laboratory results, and additional clinical claims information. Additional Orange County providers will have access to the data as well, in support of OCPRHIO and State of California strategic plans.

By leveraging CalRHIO's technology platform, provided by its technology partner Medicity, OCPRHIO chose not to incur the time and expense of building its own data exchange system. Orange County physicians are assured that they can communicate with other doctors and hospitals across the state, as well as the national network.

"Our physicians and nurses are very excited about having this new source of information," said Nova Stewart, OCPRHIO Chair and Chief Information Officer of Integrated Healthcare Holdings, Inc. Four Integrated Healthcare Holdings Inc. hospitals are the first to begin using the new HIE system - Coastal Communities Hospital, Western Medical Center Anaheim, Western Medical Center Santa Ana, and Chapman Medical Center. "We believe that having access to patient data in the emergency department will enable us to better serve our patients," Stewart said.