March 1 Marks One Year for NC HealthConnex, the State-Designated Health Information Exchange
Milestones by the Numbers (as of March 1, 2017):
Unique Patient Records: 3.6 million
Live Data Connections: 131
Facilities Connected (Live in Production): 855 (includes 22 hospitals, including UNC Health Care System, 23 county health departments, 8 FQHCs, and ambulatory practices)
Who is Connected?
We would like to send out a very special thank you to the health care providers who were among the first to initiate the new connection to NC HealthConnex. View the full list of providers who are live in production with NC HealthConnex.
There are an additional 76 provider practices in the technical onboarding process and an additional 177 are waiting for EHR integrations to be built. We are pleased to report that the athenahealth pilot is underway for a multi-tenant, bidirectional connection for athenahealth customers! Negotiations continue with Allscripts, CureMD and eClinical Works.
How to Connect?
For providers impacted by the law who have not signed an agreement with NC HIEA, there are several methods by which you may connect: a direct connection through your EHR product; a hospital system with whom you are affiliated/owned; or a regional or private HIE with whom you participate.
For more information, see our website on how to connect.
Oh, the Places We’ll Go
As we embark on year two, the NC HIEA team continues to travel the state meeting with impacted health care groups to explain the State mandate, answer questions and seek input into building a statewide HIE that will encompass all sectors in the health care industry – hospitals and health systems, physician practices, behavioral health, pharmacy, long-term care, managed care, and many more.
We’ve learned a great deal in year one from many of you about the challenges in meeting the law as it is currently written and are working in collaboration with the Division of Medical Assistance to develop thoughtful feedback and recommendations to present to the General Assembly. Stay tuned.
As part of our stakeholder engagement, there are several work group meetings taking place in March. These are open to the public and include:
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Behavioral Health – Wednesday, March 8, 1:00-4:00 pm, Location: iCenter, 217 West Jones Street and available via WebEx. To register, hiea@nc.gov.
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HIE Task Force – Tuesday, March 21, 10:00 am. Click here to view agenda and register.
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Specialty Registry Taskforce – Thursday, March 23, 10:00 am. Click here to register.
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NC HIEA Advisory Board – Wednesday, March 29, 1:00-4:00 pm. Location: iCenter Unite Conference Room, 217 West Jones Street, Raleigh, NC 27601
Additionally, the NC HIEA will be presenting at the following association meetings this month.
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NC Pediatric Society Practice Manager Retreat – March 3
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NC Medical Group Management - Triangle Chapter Meeting – March 9
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NC Providers Council – March 20
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NCHICA Health Policy Workshop – March 30
What’s New
The NC HIEA signed and submitted the Healtheway Participation Agreement, DURSA and eHealth Exchange application this week. This federal exchange is a group of organizations collaborating on and working toward interoperable health information exchange across states and with federal agencies. Once the connection is live in production (we anticipate in the first half of this year), the foundation will be laid for NC HealthConnex to build connections to out-of-state HIEs and federal agencies enabling participants to utilize the connection within the NC HealthConnex Clinical Portal for a number of use cases that include:
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Treatment / Care Coordination - Enables access to critical information (e.g., test results, medication history, allergy info, immunizations) and makes available to providers when patient is transferred to a facility in or out of state
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Responder Only Profile - Enables other networks (e.g., release of info, companies, and SAAS model vendors) to respond to queries from eHealth Exchange Participants on behalf of their client
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Military/Veteran Health - DoD and VA exchange active service members and veterans’ records to provide government and private caregivers with up to date medical histories
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Authorized Release of Information - Disability Determination - Social Security Administration requests claimant records electronically to make disability determinations. Cuts down claims processes from months to days
More to come on this feature in future updates, and related training will be provided to participants.
Participation Agreements
In the January Update we announced that we had created two new participation agreements to govern the connection to NC HealthConnex and align with the nationwide eHealth Exchange Restatement I of the Data Use and Reciprocal Support Agreement (DURSA). These are the Full Participation Agreement and Submission Only Agreement. We know that a number of providers have been provided with the earlier version of the Participation Agreement, but may not have returned that to the NC HIEA yet. Please note: After March 30, we will no longer accept the former version of the Participation Agreement that was distributed prior to January 12, 2017. The new documents are linked above and available on the website.
For NC HealthConnex Participants
For those who missed this week’s TeleTown Hall on Tuesday, February 28, on the topic of “How to Obtain a Direct Secure Messaging Account and How to Utilize Your New DSM Account,” it will be available on the website early next week.
Additionally, provider directory updates and additions are due today in order to be included in the next iteration.
We’re Hiring!
We are continuing to grow our staff, and are currently seeking a full-time position for a Privacy and Security Officer to support the NC Health Information Exchange Authority. If interested, please see the posting here.
Questions? Call the NC HIEA business office at 919-754-6912 or send an email to hiea@nc.gov.