California health information exchange platform powered by medicity is “Shovel-Ready”

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CalRHIO offers sustainable business model for other state-wide HIEs to emulate

Medicity, the technology partner for the California Regional Health Information Organization’ (CalRHIO), announced today the availability of a CalRHIO white paper outlining best practices for launching a sustainable, statewide health information network that will improve the safety, quality, and efficiency of patient care – all goals of the Obama administration. CalRHIO’s initiative is “shovel-ready,” as defined by the economic stimulus package for HIE, and has already made significant progress toward providing secure, electronic access to critical patient information when and where the provider needs it for care.

According to the paper, CalRHIO’s “flexible, adaptable, scalable, and proven technology platform,” powered by Medicity, is ready to be rolled out across California, starting with emergency departments and then extending to physician offices. The CalRHIO system enables healthcare providers across the state to electronically view information not available before at the point-of-care, including patients’ medication history, laboratory results, and clinical claims data.

In the next phase, regional/local data sources and additional technical services will be added. Use of health information is restricted to patient care and is protected and exchanged under strict medical privacy and confidentiality regulations.

Formed in 2005, CalRHIO has established a statewide, public/private organization with broad support among healthcare stakeholders, including local RHIOs. The white paper outlines the long-term, self-sustaining business model developed by CalRHIO and Medicity that ensures the network can not only be deployed, but maintained and continually improved. Under this approach, CalRHIO will share in proven cost of health care savings realized by payers that participate in the HIE. The savings will be objectively quantified by a neutral third party.

CalRHIO believes that because Medicity’s secure collaboration solution requires little or no upfront investment in hardware and software by participants, it will encourage maximum participation by California healthcare providers. “CalRHIO’s platform makes it possible for physicians, hospitals, and health plans to ‘plug and play,’ using their current technology to view, acquire, or provide data to the HIE,”  Debbie Rieger, Chief Operating Officer of CalRHIO, said. “With a flexible and adaptable architecture, CalRHIO can also accommodate the various versions of industry standards currently deployed. We owe this flexibility, scalability, and ease-of-use to our technology partner, Medicity.”

The leader in healthcare interoperability and collaboration, Medicity has provided HIE solutions since 1998. Medicity currently participates in the National Health Information Network (NHIN) trial implementations through its work as the prime technology solutions provider to the Delaware Health Information Network, the first fully-connected, statewide HIE. Medicity also provides the technology platform for the Mississippi Coastal Health Information Exchange to build a regional health information organization, and is currently the technology core for nearly 100 local, regional and hospital-based healthcare exchanges.

About CalRHIO

CalRHIO is a nonprofit, public-private partnership that contracts to provide technology and data to local providers throughout the state. Its mission is to improve the safety, quality, and efficiency of health care through the secure electronic exchange of critical patient information.For more information on CalRHIO, visit http://www.calrhio.org .

About Medicity

With Medicity, clinicians are empowered to deliver superior quality, highly efficient and better-coordinated healthcare through fast and easy access to, and collaboration with, patient-centric clinical information acquired from disparate systems across multiple care locations. By leveraging Medicity technology, physicians, hospitals and Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) optimize clinical workflow, enhance patient safety and deliver cost-effective, efficient healthcare to patients and communities. Medicity, Inc. has been connecting healthcare since 1998. For more information, please visit http://www.medicity.com .