Author: Jessica Hagins
Hospital Tour Provides Valuable Feedback from NC HIEA Participants
Recently, staff from the N.C. Health Information Exchange Authority had a chance to tour a handful of hospitals throughout North Carolina. The goal of this tour was to talk with hospital staff about their daily operations and workflow, how NC HealthConnex is used and how beneficial they find the system and the data to be.
“We value relationships very much,” said Tim Taylor, Business Development Manager for the NC HEIA, who led the effort. “This tour gave us the chance to meet the people who are doing the work.”
The trip began in the northwestern region of the state with a hospital that was one of the early adopters of NC HealthConnex. Since signing up, however, their use of the system had been minimal.
This gave NC HIEA staff an opportunity to show hospital staff in real-time how our suite of value-added services, such as the NC HealthConnex Clinical Portal and NC*Notify, the event notification service, could help fill some of their critical care gaps and improve their workflow.
“After giving them the opportunity to see patient encounters, quality of the data and the detail within the portal, they were eager to start the tour and spread the news,” said Taylor.
Staff were interested in reexamining the use of the NC HealthConnex Clinical Portal as part of their workflow and participate in training regarding the use of the system.
One anesthesiologist said he depends on finding whatever records he can, calling and emailing local hospitals for patient records before surgery. He believes the data within NC HealthConnex will help his pre-op team and care treatment plans in the future by filling in missing critical clinical data.
NC HIEA staff also visited a large hospital system in central North Carolina, where they outlined a common concern for facilities of their size – that providers are reluctant to have to sign into external systems, such as the Clinical Portal.
Their mission, therefore, was to connect external systems directly to their EHR. A bidirectional connection with NC HealthConnex allows providers to pull data on patients that has been submitted to NC HealthConnex back to their practice’s EHR. This option also assists providers in attesting to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) measure: bidirectional exchange through an HIE.
In the east, NC HIEA staff visited two regional hospitals where staff were interested in training on value-added services. NC HIEA staff showed them a demonstration video of the newly updated Clinical Portal.
NC HIEA staff is always available to help facilities in switching to a new agreement, signing up for services and training on the use of NC HealthConnex systems. Visit the training page of our website to learn more.
There was also discussion on this second stop regarding the value and growth of the state health information exchange, particularly in the rapidly evolving interoperability landscape. NC HealthConnex has grown from just over 100 connected facilities shortly after its inception, to thousands of North Carolina providers today.
New participation agreements are being submitted every day and new connections continue to be built, adding to the amount of available data. A more connected health care landscape means better health care outcomes are possible for North Carolina residents.
NC HealthConnex Helps Providers Access Records for Displaced Patients During Disaster Situations
As a reminder that during a hurricane or any weather emergency, health care providers participating in NC HealthConnex, North Carolina’s state-designated health information exchange, can connect to neighboring state and regional HIEs to support access to patient records in the event that displaced patients seek care in facilities from neighboring states.
NC HealthConnex supports bidirectional query and exchange of patient records with participation in the national eHealth Exchange Network. NC HealthConnex participants can use the clinical portal to query, view and exchange patient records, and access other features. Neighboring connections via the eHealth Exchange include:
- East Tennessee Health Information Network (etHIN)
- Georgia Health Information Network (GaHIN)
- Georgia Regional Academic Community Health Information Exchange (GRAChIE)
- MedVirginia
- Veterans Health Information Exchange (VHIE), U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the U.S. Department of Defense joint health information exchange
- Defense Medical Information Exchange (DMIX), U.S. Department of Defense
NC HealthConnex also enables the exchange of patient data with networks in 25 states through participation in the Patient Centered Data Home (PCDH)™ national network. This secure health data exchange initiative managed by Civitas Networks for Health notifies North Carolina providers when their patients receive out-of-state care.
To access these connections, members of your clinical team will need clinical portal credentials to look up patient health information. Please follow the instructions (Participant Account Administrator Reference Guide) to proactively request these credentials. If you have questions, contact the NC HealthConnex SAS Support Desk or NC HealthConnex staff.
Employee Spotlight
Lalethia Bethea
Project Manager
Lalethia joined the NC HIEA team in July 2024 and is excited to learn more about the NC HIEA. She will be assisting with managing projects associated with NC Medicaid.
Lalethia has several years of experience as a project manager, with 7 of those overseeing installation of electronic health record systems. She enjoys the testing phase of the delivery cycle because it ensures that the requirements and design are as expected.
She is an active member of the North Carolina Project Management Institute where she serves as Vice President of Professional Development. Lalethia enjoys going to Florida to visit family as often as possible.
Connex Kudos:
“I was able to confirm that a patient of mine who had several outstanding referrals to different care organizations had not rescheduled her appointments as planned – this saved time for me and the medical records staff from having to log into three separate Epic systems to get the same information.”
– Independent Physician’s Office