SUBSCRIBE                                                                                                       Spring 2017
GaHIN Specialty Connections Connections
Two statewide specialty practices have joined GaHIN, which offers new opportunities to access patient health data: 

DaVita Healthcare Partners - one of the largest kidney care companies in the U.S.

Atlanta Gastroenterology Associates
- one of the largest gastroenterology practices in the U.S.

CareSource, New Georgia CMO, Joins GaHIN CareSource
CareSource has established a connection with GaHIN in preparation for its kickoff in Georgia on July 1, 2017. CareSource is the fourth Care Management Organization (CMO) in Georgia, offering benefits to enrollees in Georgia Medicaid and PeachCare for Kids®, Georgia Families® and Planning for Healthy Babies® (P4HB®).

DCH Webinars on Demand Webinars
Ready to learn about using the Clinical Viewer in GAMMIS? Sign up for one of the free monthly webinars offered through the Georgia Department of Community Health (DCH).
 
The Interoperability/ Clinical Viewer sessions, usually held on the fourth Friday of the month at 11:00 AM, include presenters from DCH and GaHIN who offer "how to" instructions for signing up and using the Clinical Viewer as well as more in-depth insights on this new tool for Medicaid providers.

GaHIN is now connected to the VA, but patients must opt in to participate. Ask your patients if they are veterans - if they are, direct them to  www.va.gov/VLER for information and the sign-up form (VA Form 10-0485).  
New Services from GaHIN NewServices  
Spring is a time of new growth in the world around us, as well as at GaHIN. In this issue we take a look at our new care alerts program and welcome a new Care Management Organization to Georgia - and to GaHIN.
 
We're delighted to feature an interview with Dr. Jeoffrey White on the topic of the new Clinical Viewer within GAMMIS. Dr. White explains the benefits to patients, clinicians and staff members from the ability to view patient information within GaHIN right from the GAMMIS portal.
 
These are just a few of the advances we're making at GaHIN. In the near future we'll introduce a Medical Image Exchange service and provide more information on our work with public health registries. These registries include:
  • Georgia Registry of Immunization Transactions and Services (GRITS)
  • State Electronic Notifiable Disease Surveillance System (SendSS)
  • Cancer Registry (GeorgiaDirect)  
  • Birth Defects Registry (seeking early testers)
  • EMS/Trauma Database (June 2017)             
  • Alzheimer's Registry
  • Newborn Registry
If you are interested in learning how you can participate in these programs, either as an early tester or adopter, please contact us.
Are You Part of GaHIN? Know Someone Who Would Benefit from Data Exchange?JoinGaHIN
GaHIN is Georgia's statewide health information exchange (HIE), connecting state agencies, health systems, hospitals, specialty providers, regional HIEs and the VA.

Through GaHIN, providers have the information they need at the point of care to optimize outcomes while improving care coordination, interoperability and population health.

And GaHIN's core products are FREE for credentialed, authorized Georgia users. These products include:

Georgia ConnectedCareProviders can make queries from within their EHR to quickly access patient health data from hospitals, physician practices, state health systems and much more.

GeorgiaDirectProviders can securely send patient health information, such as referrals and reports, to other authorized healthcare professionals within Georgia and nationwide.

Please contact us if you're ready to get connected!

GaHIN Introduces Care Alerting  CareAlerts
GaHIN has rolled out a new Care Alerts program that will enhance the value of data within the Network for members and facilitate care coordination. Care alerts notify clinicians and other organizations of their patients' hospital admissions, discharges and transfers (ADTs).
 
The initial use of the system is by Amerigroup, one of four care management organizations (CMOs) serving Georgia Medicaid and Medicare patients. The Division of Family and Children Services (DFACS) is also using the system to proactively track the population they serve. And the Children's Healthcare of Atlanta (CHOA), the largest children's hospital in the Southeast and a member of Georgia's statewide HIE network, is participating.
 
"It can be a real challenge to coordinate care for the approximately 27,000 children, youth and young adults who are in foster care, receiving adoption assistance or in the juvenile justice system," explained Dr. Denise Hines, Executive Director of GaHIN. "By its very nature, this is a population that is continually changing, making it difficult to obtain a patient's medical history, share care plans and achieve optimum outcomes."
 
In addition to care alerts, GaHIN's system also facilitates care plan exchange among CMOs and providers.
 
"We are excited about the benefit this offers to all patients, especially to those in foster care who are too young to advocate and help manage their own care," Dr. Hines said. "We've already heard of solid success stories from Amerigroup and the other CMOs are eager to become involved with the program."
How Care Alerting Works HowWorks
  1. The CMO registers a member and their Care Plan with GaHIN.
  2. The hospital or provider registers a patient and their Continuity of Care Document (CCD). 
  3. The hospital/provider can view the patient's Care Plan through their GaHIN connection.
  4. The hospital/providers sends ADT data to GaHIN.
  5. GaHIN examines the ADT feed for triggers that meet the alerting criteria and notifies the CMO.
  6. The CMO case manager can access GaHIN to view details of the acute encounter and can take immediate and necessary action to maintain the continuity of care.

Dr. Jeoffrey White: Clinical Viewer Is a Win/Win/Win
DrWhite 

Jeoffrey H. White, MD, FAAP, who has been practicing medicine in Dalton since 1981 and is the founder of White's Pediatrics, recently took time from his busy schedule to share his thoughts on the benefits offered by the Clinical Viewer in GAMMIS:
 
"Over the past several years, healthcare has been going through quite a few changes, and the majority of these changes require a major expense from the provider. We are always being asked to either purchase something or be involved in something that has a cost associated with it.
 
"With the clinical viewer in GAMMIS, we finally we have something that can aid us in our care and connectivity by viewing real-time data online, allowing us to deliver the level of care we want to provide and realize what's happening at other clinical sites, and it's free. I cannot emphasize this enough - it's free.
 
"This is not just for providers with EHRs; it's free to any Medicaid provider that has internet connectivity. This is an opportunity for anyone, whether they have an EHR or not, to get real, live data on their patients from the GaHIN network through the clinical viewer on the GAMMIS website.
 
"This is an exciting, exciting time for us, because we realize that getting real-time clinical data can be extremely important. If your patient has an ER visit, it is a time-consuming process to get the necessary information to not only appropriately treat the patient, but to make sure that the patient is being treated properly.
 
"Looking at the clinical viewer, which has a very beautiful and useful format, you're able to access the patient information and see the diagnosis, chronologically view the last visits, ascertain what medications they have been prescribed and should be taking, see what labs were obtained at the ER and view any testing information including X-rays. You can print it out and put it on a clipboard or provide to the provider in digital format.
 
"Another use case is with the foster children we treat. They are brought in by a staffer and the kid, especially an asthmatic, won't know their medication information. The person who brought them in has no clue. This is really frustrating and we spend a lot of time trying to discover what medicine they're on. For a Medicaid patient, the information on when they were last seen and what medications they're on is readily available to us. This is so important, especially for foster kids.
 
"If you're in the state of Georgia, this is a wonderful resource for you. We are very excited about how much this is helping us not only in providing optimum clinical care but also to cut down our staff time. I call this a win/win/win - the patient benefits, the provider benefits and the staff benefits - all free of charge!"