BronxRHIO to deploy Axolotl's health information exchange solutions

Oct 5 2009

The Bronx Regional Health Information Organization (BronxRHIO) today announced that it has signed an agreement with Axolotl Corp., the nationwide leader in health information exchange (HIE) solutions and services. The BronxRHIO, a not-for-profit organization established by the borough’s leading healthcare organizations, will deploy Axolotl’s Elysium® Exchange suite of solutions to enable healthcare providers to securely access and share clinical information, with a goal of reducing healthcare costs and improving the quality of patient care.

“After an extensive evaluation of HIE solutions, we selected Axolotl for their experience and proven success in deploying advanced HIEs in the state of New York and across the country,” said Don Ashkenase, Board Chair for the BronxRHIO and Executive Vice President for Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, New York. “In the digital age of the 21^st century, electronic health information must be made securely available to clinicians and patients when and where it is needed. Our mission is to establish an HIE that will provide authorized clinicians and other caregivers with vital health information at the point of care, enabling significant improvements in patient safety, health outcomes and practice efficiencies. We believe that Axolotl is the best partner to help us accomplish this.”

Serving the 1.4 million residents in the Bronx, participants of the BronxRHIO provide more than 80 percent of the healthcare in the Bronx and include hospitals, health systems, ambulatory care centers, individual physician offices, long-term care and home care services. The BronxRHIO is implementing Axolotl’s Elysium Exchange to clinically network disparate legacy health information (HIS) and electronic medical record (EMR) systems for complete interoperability. With Elysium Exchange, practices with any EMR can electronically exchange information seamlessly and naturally. For physicians that do not already have an EMR, they can easily be part of the Bronx HIE with Axolotl’s CCHIT certified Elysium EMR Lite and immediately begin receiving, sharing and collaborating on patient care.

“With Axolotl’s proven and open-standards technology, we have a great opportunity to rapidly deploy a regional health information exchange throughout the Bronx to improve the quality of care for the residents,” said Charles Scaglione, Executive Director of BronxRHIO. “It also gives us the opportunity to collaborate with other RHIOs and New York State’s Department of Health.”

“Axolotl has in place a dedicated Statewide Health Information Network for New York (SHIN-NY) development and implementation team, which closely follows guidelines established by the New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeC) and New York Department of Health. This team’s expertise will enable the BronxRHIO to meet the state regulations related to the disclosure of clinical information and to adhere to privacy policies,” according to Glenn Keet, Axolotl’s Executive Vice President.

"We are committed to creating a health information exchange to transform the delivery of healthcare in the Bronx,” he said. “Axolotl has now connected more healthcare communities than any other vendor, and we are confident that with our help, the BronxRHIO will achieve its goal of a secure, interoperable health information exchange that enables patients’ medical records to be accessible wherever they go for healthcare services.”