An Enterprise HIE is defined as the mobilization of healthcare information electronically across organizations. The Enterprise HIE can be used to move information within a region, community or hospital system. As such, the Enterprise HIE system is a great answer to problems found when forming an ACO. HIE provides the capability to electronically move clinical information among disparate health care information systems while maintaining the meaning of the information being exchanged. A HIE can also assist public health authorities in the analysis of the health of the population, which aids the cost cutting goals of accountable care. Ultimately, the goal of an HIE is to facilitate access to and retrieval of clinical data.
As a result, the Enterprise HIE data becomes:
Safer: The Enterprise HIE environment is a highly secured ecosystem that ensures authorized users are the only participants and that the patient grants approval only to those whom they wish to have access to their clinical information. In addition, the information is encrypted and when appropriate is made available for analytic purposes in a de-identified basis. The Enterprise HIE adheres to all HIPAA regulatory requirements that have been and are being mandated by the federal government.
More timely: The patient clinical information is available immediately at the time of care or retrospectively for population disease management.
Efficient: The clinical information is made available through a RLS which negates the need to store and duplicate the clinical information and makes the request more efficient and timely.
Effective: Because the clinical information is from all healthcare service provider locations, physicians and healthcare systems can effectively treat and manage the patient from a real holistic point of view.
Equitable: Since the Enterprise HIE does not discriminate patients by any criteria, physicians and healthcare systems can get access to all citizen/patient information as long as they are receiving care at a healthcare provider that is participating in the Enterprise HIE ecosystem. In addition, many HIE business models have considered moving towards a consumption-based pricing model and therefore participants are charged only for what they use. This ensures that the burden on the cost of the HIE is not unfairly or unjustly charged to the physician community.
Patient-Centered Care: The Enterprise HIE ecosystem provides the backbone to enable the long-term goal of an Accountable Care Organization (ACO) structure with the ability to connect the patient’s home to complete the full cycle of healthcare information sources from the citizen/patient point of view.
Creating this common store of knowledge will ultimately feed the best practices that make healthcare organizations both patient care centric and successful at delivering optimum care.
