QHN expands to the Western Colorado communities of Aspen and Montrose

Feb 1 2010

Quality Health Network (QHN), one of the most celebrated and successful health information exchanges (HIE) in the country, and Axolotl Corp., the nationwide leader in HIE solutions and services, are pleased to announce QHN’s successful expansion to the Western Colorado communities of Aspen and Montrose. The addition of the two communities initiates the next stage of QHN’s overall expansion effort to allow more than 20 hospitals and attendant physicians in the 40,000 square miles of Western Colorado to securely share clinical information, improve patient outcomes, and reduce costs. During a recent visit to Grand Junction and town hall meeting conducted by President Obama, QHN was identified as a model for quality improvement and cost efficiency.

“Aspen Valley Hospital is dedicated to delivering extraordinary health care. We are continually working to improve outcomes and want to offer our physicians and medical staff state-of-the-art technology to help them provide the best possible patient care”

Using Axolotl’s Elysium Exchange platform deployed by QHN, the independent hospitals and physicians of Aspen and Montrose are now electronically connected to each other and with other independent hospitals and physicians in Grand Junction. The real time clinical messaging infrastructure allows authorized physicians to share clinical data at the point of care between and among disparate hospital and Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems. QHN participants may share laboratory results, radiology reports, E.R. reports, progress notes, medications lists and a whole host of other mission-critical patient data.

The flexible data model provides physicians with the ability to aggregate medical history from across the care continuum into a single longitudinal patient medical record enabling timely diagnosis and treatment of patient problems. QHN participants without an EMR may subscribe to use QHN’s EMR-Xchange© product, a CCHIT certified EMR also provided by Axolotl. The software is offered as a service (SaaS) and provides workflow automation, electronic prescribing, ordering, referrals and authorizations, as well as patient registry and decision support tools for physicians.

Together with support teams from QHN and Axolotl, staff from the two independent hospitals worked rapidly to complete ongoing real time interfaces to the online QHN system and to complete the loading of two years of clinical history before the beginning of the busy ski season.

“We are delighted that the physicians of Aspen and Montrose have joined the network,” said Dick Thompson, Executive Director and CEO of the not-for-profit QHN. “Our expansion plan for Western Colorado has been facilitated by funding from the area providers and from the generous support of the Colorado Health Foundation. Their support and leadership validates the vision of QHN’s founders and improves the ability of area physicians to delivery high quality care.”

“Aspen Valley Hospital is dedicated to delivering extraordinary health care. We are continually working to improve outcomes and want to offer our physicians and medical staff state-of-the-art technology to help them provide the best possible patient care,” said David Ressler, CEO of Aspen Valley Hospital (AVH). “Thanks to the financial support of the Aspen Valley Hospital Foundation, we are able to implement this new technology. We see a high value in providing our area physicians with timely access to complete patient information at the point of care. It helps them better serve their patients.”

“At Montrose Memorial Hospital, we recognize that patients benefit from the timely exchange of clinical information among all health care providers in our regional area,” said David Hample, CEO of Montrose Memorial Hospital (MMH). “Now that we are connected to the QHN network, we are extremely pleased to have made it a lot easier for our physicians to securely receive and share patient information electronically with other area practices and hospitals. We want to improve patient satisfaction and reduce costs and our QHN connection can help us do that.”

QHN is a non-profit organization founded and sustained by local health care groups to optimize the health of Western Coloradans. “We are pleased to be partnered with Axolotl Corp., and to have delivered this turnkey solution to help area hospitals and ambulatory physicians deliver high-quality cost-effective patient care,” said Thompson.

“QHN continues to be a shining example of how much RHIOs can and have already achieved,” said Glenn Keet, President of Axolotl. “We are excited to have expanded the QHN network, and look forward to enabling all physicians in the QHN catchment area to achieve meaningful use via their connection to the HIE.”