eHealth Technologies www.eHealthTechnologies.com a provider of images and Orion Health www.orionhealth.com a global population health management and healthcare integration company, have signed an agreement to incorporate eHealth Connect Image Exchange into the Orion Health Open Platform. This now enables providers using the North Dakota Health Information Network (NDHIN) www.ndhin.org to have access and share diagnostic quality medical images.
Sheldon Wolf Health Information Technology Director, NDHIN reports, “NDHIN is now able to equip providers with the tools they need to conduct real-time image consultations with other caregivers for a faster and more complete diagnosis and treatment.”
In more news affecting HIEs, three large health systems have joined San Diego Health Connect www.sdhealthconnect.org including Scripps Health www.scripps.org, Sharp HealthCare www.sharp.com, and the University of California at San Diego Medical Center http://healthucsd.edu/Pages/default.asx.
There are already 100 other facilities that already participate in Health Connect including Rady Children’s Hospital www.rchsd.org, Kaiser Permanente www.kaiserpermanente.org, Department of Veterans Affairs www.sandiego.va.gov, and the Department of Defense www.defense.gov. .
San Diego Health Connect acts not as a keeper of information, but rather as a conduit. Requests from providers are sent to a data hub where pertinent information is assembled and routed for real-time electronic delivery. More than 200,000 messages are exchanged through the system every day among the San Diego hospitals and community clinics currently in the system
The exchange currently has consent from about 1.5 million patients. To expedite participation among patients, Health Connect and participating organizations have adopted a new policy to gain patient authorization. Patients must now opt out of the program rather than explicitly give consent to participate.
“Before we had a solid infrastructure and base for our HIE, but we weren’t getting the uptake in consents. The original community policy for opt-in was just taking too long. It was too slow and wasn’t convenient. We weren’t scaling in our adoption and utilization of the HIE effectively,” said Health Connect Executive Director Dan Chavez.