May 2020
News from Nebraska Health Information Initiative
Welcome to our first edition of NEHII’s e-newsletter! 

Each month, we’ll share news and information with you about your health information exchange and the work the NEHII team is doing for you.

I think it’s fair to say this is an extraordinary time, like nothing any of us has ever experienced before. As COVID-19 started to appear in Nebraska, NEHII answered the call, using technology to create our COVID-19 data-monitoring dashboard. Connecting patient data from across the state allows health care professionals on the front-line to monitor the virus outbreak, enabling a rapid response.  (To learn more about the dashboard, read the article below.)

Since our founding in 2008, NEHII has been committed to enabling a healthier Nebraska and the region through the availability of health information. That commitment remains strong today -- and we’re just getting started! We’d love to hear from you. Contact us with any questions or concerns you have. I look forward to communicating with you, via this new channel, and face-to-face when we’re once again able to do that safely.


Jaime Bland, DNP, RN
Chief Executive Officer 
NEHII responds to COVID-19
In mid-March when COVID-19 surfaced in Nebraska, NEHII moved quickly, working closely with the Department of Health and Human Services and multiple technology vendors to build and launch a data platform in just three weeks. The system corrals COVID-19 data (admission, discharge and lab results) from across the state and puts it into one dashboard for providers to use. The dashboard delivers accurate, knowledge-based data that informs life-saving decisions and community emergency prevention efforts. 

NEHII is proud to play a leadership role in closing information sharing gaps, matching patients to their health data and providing real-time insights for pandemic preparedness and prevention.

New platform to serve you better
At NEHII, our goal is to ensure that patients, providers and payers get a comprehensive view of health records and can extract as much value from the data as possible. We continue to look for ways to improve. That’s why we are in the process of migrating our core technology platform to better serve you.

NEHII selected InterSystems as the foundational technology for our health information exchange. That means we are in the process of migrating platforms from Optum to InterSystems HealthShare.

We’re making this change to ensure NEHII is best positioned to deliver innovative services to you, such as unified health records and analytics, as well as help manage cost, utilization and quality of care. InterSystems supports coordinated care and population health management and offers expanded flexibility for future enhancements. This change allows us to connect a broader set of data sources to our members.  Read our FAQs.
NEHII achieves 19 eCQMs certification
First HIE to earn the NCQA eMeasure certification
Furthering our mission to drive interoperability and improve quality of care, NEHII is excited to announce the successful achievement of 19 electronic clinical quality measures (eCQM) certification from the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA). The results are based on 2019 reporting. NEHII was the first health information exchange to earn the NCQA eMeasure certification in June 2019.

The NCQA eCQM certification program evaluates how well electronic systems calculate eCQMs using electronic clinical data. Health plans, provider organizations and others rely on accurate data to make decisions about value-based contracting. By earning eCQM certification from NCQA, NEHII can confidently say our system has undergone the industry’s most rigorous assessment. Reporting is more accurate for these systems than systems not certified by NCQA.

“Certification in these quality measures speaks to NEHII’s goal to reduce the administrative burden of data reporting,” said Melanie Surber, Chief Clinical Officer. “By being able to abstract and submit data by these NCQA standards to our payers, we are reducing the ask of our providers and health systems to provide this data through submission of medical records. It also allows the payers to have data that meets the rigors of their NCQA accreditation standards.”

To learn more about how NEHII can help you meet your quality reporting needs, email support@nehii.org or call 402.506.9900, ext. 1.

Give Us a Follow on Social for More Great Content and Updates