INTRODUCTION: What is this Newsletter About?

Welcome to our State Agency Newsletter! As a non-profit organization primarily funded by the state, we are dedicated to being the primary resource for all your community care goals. We encourage you to always prioritize THINK CONNIE FIRST when striving to improve the health outcomes of the communities we serve.

Connie plays an essential role in facilitating a secure and appropriate exchange of electronic health information among healthcare providers, public health agencies, and other stakeholders involved in the care of Connecticut's residents.

We recognize the crucial role of state agencies in providing essential care to the community, from ensuring public health and safety to promoting the growth and development of children. These agencies also play a valuable part in supporting vulnerable members of the community to live fulfilling and productive lives, and we are thrilled to collaborate with them to achieve our shared goal of improving health outcomes for all.

In this newsletter, we will keep you updated on our latest initiatives and collaborations, share insights on the benefits of an HIE, and highlight how our platform is positively impacting the lives of patients across Connecticut. We also look forward to hearing from you and learning how Connie can assist you in achieving your data-driven goals.

Thank you for your interest in Connie and for aligning with our mission to improve the health of Connecticut through innovative technology. We hope you find this newsletter informative and valuable, and we look forward to working with you to create a healthier Connecticut!

Health Information Exchanges Improve Population Health:

DC Improves Community Health Analytics Tool

CRISP DC, the designated health information exchange (HIE) for the District of Columbia, is advancing population health with a data initiative to support health organizations in improving patient care outcomes at the population and patient level through clinical and administrative data. Recently, CRISP DC showcased how population health reports can improve care at the community level at the Medicaid Enterprise Systems Community (MESC) Conference, using HIE data and leveraging private and public partnerships to facilitate an invaluable system-wide population health analytics tool. 

With approximately 40% of the DC population relying on Medicaid for their healthcare needs, CRISP DC plays a crucial part in delivering population health data to effectively assist this vulnerable group. By developing tools that help care teams address equity gaps, CRISP DC leverages data contributed to the HIE to manage complex patient cases and support whole-person care. 

Through collaboration with public partners like Medicaid, CRISP DC uses claims data to create population health insights. The DC Department of Health Care Finance (DHCF) administers Medicaid and shares this data with the HIE. CRISP DC then generates comprehensive reports for district-wide utilization and population health needs. Reviewing CMS measures, the HIE helps provider organizations manage large reports from DHCF, allowing them to better assess patient health and meet CMS goals. 

The invaluable utility of the HIE in the District extends far beyond gathering the latest patient notes and basic information. As HIEs like CRISP DC expand to become true health data utilities, the possibilities of use continue to enhance patient care at a wider scope. For example, health data utilities can help highlight community trends to provide clinicians with custom panels for well care child visits and vaccinations, race and ethnicity insights, and eye exams. In addition, CRISP DC is working on an upcoming connection to identify Medicaid dental providers for new patient oral care evaluations. CRISP DC continues to thrive in serving its district by listening to user feedback and becoming as nimble and responsive as possible to enhance partnerships, build ongoing trust, and fulfilling the true role of an HIE: to be an invaluable tool for providing the best patient care. 

Reducing Administrative Burden: Maryland's Health Information Exchange Improves Data and Reduces Administrative Fatigue in the School Setting

Maintaining up-to-date vaccinations is crucial to school readiness requirements. However, ensuring that students are fully vaccinated can be a strain on school staff before the school year even starts. Without updated vaccinations, students risk missing out on vital activities, and may even start the school year late, potentially lagging academically behind their peers. 

Maryland’s HIE, Chesapeake Regional Information Systems for Our Patients (CRISP), reduces ambiguity and manual data processing by facilitating data flows from the Maryland Department of Health to schools to decrease the burden on parents and schools, saving schools precious time and staffing costs while enabling students to meet state vaccination requirements. The HIE can automatically validate the status of student immunization records allowing school system teams to easily identify children needing immunizations and proactively outreach to those families. 

Using HIEs, state immunization registries and school systems can connect to register validation of students’ vaccination records in bulk. For example, the Baltimore City Public School (BCPS) system uploads an updated student roster to a secure site daily. The HIE receives a daily upload from the State Immunization registry and processes the data by noon to include all vaccinations received from the previous day. Once the updated student roster is received, a streamlined process produces two separate files on new vaccinations from the previous day for existing students, and another detailing vaccination history. The completed process delivers incoming vaccination data to the BCPS systems, which automatically map the data to BCPS student software system each night, ready for the staff’s outreach the next day. Through this collaboration and focus on data quality, CRISP was able to accurately identify students with vaccination needs 95% of the time, providing confidence in the matching efforts.  

HIEs like CRISP create an efficient and improved system for schools that is unmatched by manual entries and traditional record retrieval. CRISP has also collaborated with the state immunization system to implement a use case that refines and corrects immunization data by addressing less obvious data matches, such as twins and students with multiple addresses.  

Like Connie, CRISP’s solutions are designed to directly address challenges like these to eliminate administrative fatigue while improving data, enabling informed care decisions and improving patient, and student, outcomes. The collaboration between CRISP and BCPS has already shown incredible value, showcasing the value of HIEs in a statewide setting. 

Connie's dedicated State Agency Newsletter is a valuable resource for staying up-to-date with how Connecticut and other states are leveraging HIEs to improve their programs. By providing timely and accurate data on the health of populations, HIEs can help agencies better target their resources and comply with state and federal regulations related to healthcare data exchange and reporting. As Connecticut's designated health information exchange, Connie is uniquely positioned to provide insights and updates on the latest trends and best practices in the industry.



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