Connections Fall 2013

Grant to Connect VA Maine Healthcare System to HealthInfoNet

The State of Maine was recently awarded a three-year grant to improve care coordination for Maine's veterans. Awarded by the Health Research and Services Administration (HRSA), the funding will be used to connect the VA Maine Healthcare System comprised of the medical center located in Augusta and 11 outpatient clinics to the health information exchange.

Recent projections from the VA Office of Rural Health show 12.8% of Maine residents are veterans, the fifth highest per capita population in the country. This funding will bridge a critical gap in care coordination by facilitating both a veteran's VA and private providers to share critical health information when it's needed to care for them. Once connection is in place, VA providers will have access to the statewide HIE and veterans will be able to choose to share their VA records with private providers also using the HIE.

Maine's Congressional delegation members, who all sent in letters of support for the project, issued a joint statement applauding HRSA's award decision. "Like the Department of Veterans Affairs itself, Maine has led the nation in adoption of health information technology and was one of the first to build a statewide health information exchange. Until now, our VA facilities have not been able to connect to this leading system to coordinate care of their patients. This funding will extend the benefits of health information exchange to Maine's veterans and the many dedicated medical professionals who care for them within our VA facilities. This will both improve the quality of care and reduce the cost of care for Maine veterans."

See the press release on our website.

New Analytic Services for Providers

HealthInfoNet will begin offering analytic services to HIE participants this year. The analytic tools, provided by partner HBI Solutions, will help health care providers better understand healthcare delivery and outcomes improvement opportunities for their patients. The tools will allow Maine providers to leverage HealthInfoNet's statewide clinical repository to conduct market share, clinical performance, population management and predictive outcomes analyses.

Historically these types of analyses were done using claims data or clinical information contained only within a single electronic health record system. HealthInfoNet's clinical data repository contains records for 1.2 million individuals with over 4.5 million annual provider encounters and offers real-time, comprehensive clinical data for both insured and uninsured patients. For example, using HBI's tools, HealthInfoNet will be able to identify patients at risk for negative outcomes or events such as emergency department visits, hospital admissions, re-admissions and lengthy hospital stays. HealthInfoNet will also be able to use real time data to provide comparative performance analysis including mortality rates, length of stay, incidence of chronic disease and provider market share. This all means more accurate, timely and actionable information for providers, helping them implement meaningful changes to improve population health.

New Notification Services Improving Care Management

More and more provider organizations are employing care managers to coordinate care for chronically ill patients such as those with diabetes, cancer, heart failure or mental illness. These patients are cared for by multiple providers meaning their medical information is scattered in many different electronic systems unavailable to their care manager. HealthInfoNet provides a central place for their information, but unless their care manager is in their record all the time, they might miss time sensitive events like emergency room visits, critical lab results or hospital discharges.

In addition to offering a centralized record, HealthInfoNet now provides its users with the option to receive email notifications for a number of events including hospital and emergency room admission and discharge and new lab and radiology results. When notified of these events in real-time, care managers and others following a patient's care can intervene early to ensure the patient gets the right care and timely follow up. This is especially important for provider organizations participating in Accountable Care Organizations or other risk based payment arrangements as billing for repeat tests and hospital readmissions will be denied. Since it was introduced earlier this year, HealthInfoNet has seen a significant boost in usage and praise from care managers across the State.

HealthInfoNet Just Keeps Growing

HealthInfoNet is pleased to welcome the following new staff. From left: Melanie Smith, Executive Assistant, Geeta Ramani, Application Developer, Rene Braun, Business Intelligence Developer and Katelyn Michaud, Program Analyst.

We've Moved!

HealthInfoNet moved just down the parking lot to a newly renovated building. We'll still be at 125 Presumpscot Street, Box 8 if you need to mail us something. But to find us, you'll need to drive to the back of the parking lot and park in front of the large brick building to the right. As you can see from our staff announcements, we've grown - so much so we didn't fit in our former space anymore. Our new building has two floors with offices on the top floor and meeting space on the ground/basement level. We also have a new phone system with direct dial numbers. To reach a member of our staff, please call our main number, 207-541-9250 and use the dial by name directory.