Defining “Meaningful Use”
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), provides significant incentive for adoption and "meaningful" use of certified electronic health record (EHR) technology by hospitals and physicians.
While there is much discussion around electronic health records, an EHR alone does not deliver interoperability, it delivers the potential for interoperability. The infrastructure for information sharing is a critical component to realizing this potential.
Patient data, whether in electronic or paper form is fragmented across providers with various records locked in individual “silos” (local systems). This fragmentation prevents bi-directional information exchange across public and private boundaries essential for EHR adoption and wide-spread interoperability.
A patient registry:
- Links different representations of a patient between these silos
- Facilitates access to relevant information
- Allows potential interoperability to be realized
Initiate Interoperable Health enables healthcare organizations to connect, share and securely use patient data within and across organizational boundaries, fostering patient-centric, coordinated care by accurately identifying a patient and his/her treating providers.
Initiate Interoperable Health as a foundation for meaningful use
There are many pseudonyms for a patient registry – enterprise master person index (EMPI) and record locator service (RLS) are two examples – but the basic functionality stays consistent and is a proven catalyst for successful information exchange.
The patient registry facilitates adoption of the EHR by enabling secure, consistent and coordinated communication between providers to create a trusted patient-centric view. It integrates patient information in different formats, from many different systems and applications to accurately link disparate records for a patient and all treating providers regardless of where the patient seeks care.
Canada Health Infoway, United States regional health information exchanges, and many leading integrated delivery networks (IDNs) use Initiate Interoperable Health as a foundation to enable effective information exchange, improve quality of care, reduce the cost of care delivery and provide patient-centered care. Many healthcare organizations use Initiate Interoperable Health in the following ways:
- Extend registration and information sharing between in-patient and out-patient systems to create a system-wide view of the patient
- Create a patient-centric view of allergies, medications, problems and test results accessible from an ambulatory EHR, portals and other departmental applications
- Relate providers to patients to understand and communicate across the extended care team and track quality performance
- Relate demographics to diseases, treatments and outcomes to understand outcomes and develop best practices
No matter the path you take to demonstrate meaningful use by 2010, the Initiate Interoperable Health delivers value.
Initiate® – a proven and trusted partner
Initiate is the acknowledged leader in interoperable health information exchange. Its unmatched depth of experience in delivering patient registries to healthcare organizations is exemplified in nearly 200 customers worldwide. The solution touches 80% of the U.S. and Canadian populations and is in use for e-prescribing, electronic exchange of medical records and interoperability.
- e-Prescribing experience – Initiate software is the backbone of the largest e-prescribing network in the U.S. and connects patient records at several of the largest retail pharmacies, including Walgreens and CVS/Caremark.
- Electronic exchange of medical records – Initiate software is used as part of the foundation for interoperability by 76 IDNs and 40 health information exchanges to connect data from disparate systems for clinical information sharing, patient registration and access and results sharing.
- Interoperability – Initiate is the EMPI or client registry in eight Canadian provinces, supporting the pan‐Canadian EHR. Further, Initiate was chosen as the patient registry for a component of the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN II) and all four of the NHIN I demonstrations funded by the Office of National Coordinator (ONC).
In addition, Initiate is recognized as the leader in improving claims processing efficiency at four of the 10 largest payer organizations, as well as four regional Blue plans.
With Initiate Interoperable Health at the foundation, healthcare organizations can make more meaningful use of their data and support the objectives of the ARRA.
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