Planning starts for Southwest Michigan health
data exchange
Thursday, September 04, 2008
By Mark Sanchez
marks@mbusinessreview.com
If they're going to do it, they may as
well do it together.
So as health care pushes further into
information technology to run the
business and care for patients,
providers across Southwest Michigan are
collaborating to ensure their I.T.
systems play well together.
Key players in the seven-county region
have begun a planning process that aims
to develop common standards and policies
for health I.T. networks, with a goal of
ensuring compatibility between care
providers.
"It's
almost as if the train has already left
the station, and there's no way it's
coming back. It's going to go forward
with or without us, so we'd like to
design a plan that has the best model
possible," said Mindy Richards,
president and CEO of Birmingham-based
ChangeScape Inc.
The Michigan Department of Community
Health in late August awarded the health
care consulting firm a $580,000 planning
grant for a health information exchange,
or HIE, in Southwest Michigan to
accommodate the secure and ready flow of
patient medical data between varying
care providers.
Similar projects have been under way for
a year in other regions across the
state, including one led by the Alliance
for Health in Grand Rapids for a
13-county area. A business plan for the
creation of a West Michigan HIE by late
2011 is expected by year's end.
The new project to develop a Southwest
Michigan HIE began Sept. 1 and includes
Bronson Healthcare Group and Borgess
Health in Kalamazoo, Lakeland HealthCare
in St. Joseph, Battle Creek Health
System, and Oaklawn Hospital in
Marshall.
A panel, now consisting of health-system
representatives, will expand to include
key stakeholders -- including physicians
-- from across the region to work on the
yearlong planning process, Richards
said.
An HIE would better connect hospitals,
physician practices, care centers such
as diagnostic labs, insurers and even
retail pharmacies -- all of which have
their own networks for documenting,
storing and transmitting patient data.
Serving as a central repository for
data, a regional HIE can generate
clinical and operating efficiencies by
helping to decrease the duplication of
medical tests and the redundancy and
overuse of medications when patients are
referred from one care provider to
another, plus reduce medical errors and
improve disease management programs.
Group planning would tackle technical,
clinical, legal and financial issues
surrounding health care I.T.
Key to the planning is to design
something that works equally for all
parties, from the health systems, with
their large I.T. staffs, to the small
medical practices that do not have the
resources to manage or invest in an
elaborate system.
That's one of the biggest technical
hurdles," said Brett Mello, chief
technology officer at Bronson. "Whatever
solutions we put in here, we want to
make sure it integrates with whatever
technology solution they have."
Developing a regional HIE represents the
next step in I.T. for health care, which
is investing heavily to upgrade systems
to manage patient data as well as to
provide care through electronic ordering
of tests and medications and the sharing
of information between doctors.
"We're just broadening our scope to
really transition the way we deliver
care," Mello said.
In Grand Rapids, the Alliance for Health
expects to finalize a graduated plan by
the end of the year that preliminarily
envisions the creation of a
clinical-messaging system between care
providers in the second half of 2009.
That system would expand into a regional
health information network, or RHIO, in
2010 that would keep data in the hands
of care providers and then evolve into a
full, independent HIE in late 2011.
Gary Newell, who's coordinating the
project for the Alliance for Health,
said cost estimates are rough right now,
with the first-level preliminarily
pegged at $2 million to $3 million to
develop.
Funding for the project may come from
assessments to participants, Newell
said.
"It's our intent to make this
financially viable based on its value to
the stakeholders," Newell said.
© 2008 Michigan Live. All Rights
Reserved.
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