Out-of-state patient information is now available in real-time through Great Lakes Health Connect (GLHC). This health data exchange expands interoperability and reduces barriers to care for providers and residents in five Midwest states. GLHC is the first health information exchange (HIE) within the recently launched Heartland Project to connect to all of the other health information exchange organizations involved in the initiative. Sponsored as a pilot program by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the National Coordinator and the Strategic Health Information Exchange Collaborative, the seven HIEs involved in the project are creating and testing the Patient Centered Data Home™ concept and are sharing the funding from HHS over a 12-month period.
In the first phase of the project, patients with home zip codes in Michigan who receive care at a facility within one of the other HIEs’ networks are identified. Then, an Admit, Discharge, Transfer (ADT) message for that patient is sent to GLHC. The ADT message contains basic demographic information about the patient and details about the respective admit, discharge, or transfer to/from the inpatient facility. Conversely, when a patient visits a facility within the GLHC network and has an out-of-state zip code, the ADT message is sent to the corresponding HIE.
Information that GLHC receives from the other six HIEs is stored within the community health record, called the Virtual Integrated Patient Record (VIPR). The ADT information is available alongside other information about the patient that has been contributed by GLHC participants; such as laboratory results, patient care documents, and other encounter information. The messages are sent between HIEs in real-time and are available to any organization/user that has access to VIPR and a Treatment, Payment, or Operations relationship with the patient. There are over 8 million patient records accessible in VIPR.
“Great Lakes Health Connect is proud to participate in the Heartland Project and to offer our participants out-of-state information about their patients in real-time,” said Doug Dietzman, Executive Director of GLHC. “This expanded capability supports our goal of reducing the time required and the financial burden of exchanging health information among healthcare providers and across communities.”
Since reporting began in April 2017, GLHC has received 10,057 ADT messages and has sent 57,690 ADT messages. At this rate, GLHC will receive close to 52,300 ADT messages and will send just under 300,000 ADT messages to the other HIEs by April 2018.
Great Lakes Health Connect is now connected to the following Heartland Project HIE participants:
* Indiana Health Information Exchange, based in Indianapolis, IN
• HealthLINC, based in Bloomington, IN
• Michiana Health Information Network, based in South Bend, IN
• The Health Collaborative, based in Cincinnati, OH
• East Tennessee Health Information Network, based in Knoxville, TN
• The Kentucky Health Information Exchange, based in Frankfort, KY
The next phase of the Heartland Project is to provide GLHC participants with the Continuity of Care Document that corresponds with the patient’s care at the out-of-state facility. Another planned service is an electronic notification to the patient’s provider when the Michigan resident seeks care at the out-of-state facility.
As the most robust HIE in Michigan, Great Lakes Health Connect is uniquely poised to effectively facilitate the seamless transfer of electronic health information between providers in support of this overall effort. Such support has and will continue to enhance care coordination, improve health outcomes, reduce waste and redundancy, and lower the cost of care delivery.
-###-
About Great Lakes Health Connect:
Great Lakes Health Connect is among the leading providers of health information exchange services in the nation. Based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, GLHC seamlessly and securely facilitates the transmission of more than a billion messages annually between 129 hospitals and over 4,000 primary, specialty, and allied care provider offices across the state. The community-based nonprofit is dedicated to improving the quality and accessibility of healthcare information by creating care-connected communities across Michigan and beyond. For more information, visit www.gl-hc.org.