June 2024

GaHIN Completes Transition to New Platform, Opens New Doors for Pioneering Initiatives

June was a busy month for the GaHIN team, working diligently to migrate member organizations to the new GaHIN technology platform, powered by the advanced interoperability platform Intersystems HealthShare®. By moving to a more modern platform, GaHIN is giving members the opportunity to explore new use cases that were once thought to be unattainable in healthcare.

Among many things, the new GaHIN platform supports the integration of clinical and social data into a single patient record that can be accessed by authorized users across the care continuum – whether users have an EHR system or not.

It enables all stakeholders, including community-based service organizations, non-emergency medical transportation, safe and affordable housing, education and employment programs, correctional facilities, and social care organizations, to receive and securely exchange all types of data necessary to pursue whole-person care.

According to Valencia George, PMP, CSM, Senior Project Manager at GaHIN, “Our members are excited about the new opportunities our technology infrastructure brings to the table. Since our inception more than 10 years ago, we’ve been helping healthcare providers exchange clinical data. Now, we are able to extend those same capabilities to non-clinical providers and expand the type of data, such as social determinants of health (SDOH), that can be made accessible all stakeholders. GaHIN is leading the way in making whole-person care a reality in Georgia.”

GaHIN’s pioneering spirit, supported by the new platform, was on display at the recent InterSystems Global Summit keynote address, where Dr. Denise Hines, GaHIN Executive Director, was asked to speak to a crowd of more than 1,000 attendees. In her speech, Dr. Hines shared how GaHIN is the nation’s most innovative and pioneering HIE. She gave examples of how GaHIN solutions are working together to deliver on its mission of making whole-person care possible.

GaHIN By The Numbers

19M documents retrieved /year
15M patient queries/year
3M patient document retrieved from the eHX/year
11M queries responded to from eHX/year
100M ADT messages/year
25M alerts sent to members/year
1.2M Direct secure messages/year

New GaHIN Team Member Spotlight: Kristal Joseph

Meet Kristal Joseph, the newest member to the GaHIN team. Kris, or internally known as KJ, is a technical business analyst who will be focused on supporting some of GaHIN’s most exciting initiatives. KJ comes to GaHIN with a wide range of experience, including a previous role as an implementation specialist at athenahealth where she helped physician offices successfully implement the company’s EHR solutions.

“I saw first-hand the importance of healthcare providers being able to exchange data to support their patients’ care needs,” said KJ. “The pioneering work that GaHIN is doing to connect different care and services providers through securely exchanging data and enabling whole-person care was very attractive to me. And as the use of clinical and social data becomes paramount in today’s dynamic healthcare environment, I believe GaHIN will play an even bigger role than it already does in the health of Georgia citizens."

KJ continued, "This position gives me the opportunity to merge my passion for improving healthcare with my degree in information security and my years of experience as a business analyst. I’m thrilled to be part of this amazing team.”

She received her bachelor's degree in information security from Kennesaw State University and resides in Atlanta and enjoys spending time at festivals and learning to cook.

Making Immunization Data More Available Can Save Lives in Georgia

At the recent Public Health Informatics Institute (PHII) Immunization Information Systems (IIS) Leadership Workshop, GaHIN Senior Advisor Liz Hansen and GaHIN members Dr. Jeffeory White and Dr. Kathryn Cheek spoke about the importance of giving healthcare providers consistent access to immunization data from within their EHR systems. The speakers discussed the barriers and how HIEs like GaHIN can help solve these problems to ultimately enhance the quality of care, improve patient safety, and support public health efforts and regulatory compliance.

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