RelayHealth, a leading provider of healthcare connectivity services, today announced that Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula (CHOMP) in California has selected RelayHealth's health information exchange (HIE) connectivity solution to improve the quality of care and safety for its patients, create closer alignment with its physicians, and address the governance issues that arise in the process of connecting healthcare communities.
“RelayHealth's national footprint may be of service to patients who visit from other areas of the country. If their provider at home is registered on RelayHealth, a CHOMP-affiliated physician can obtain their patient's health information, including the latest test results, clinical encounters and medications.”
"RelayHealth's HIE solution supports a clinical integration strategy and meets many of our strategic needs. With RelayHealth, we will be able to tightly align and connect hospital and physician practices in the routing and exchange of secure patient data from different sources within our own enterprise," said Tom McNamara, chief information officer of CHOMP. "Health information exchange through RelayHealth is patient-centric and patient messaging is integral, whereas other players in the connectivity market are provider-centric. In addition, RelayHealth manages governance and support issues through its SaaS network model, taking the headaches of running an HIE off our hands. It's a complete service."
The 205-bed hospital, which serves patients in the Monterey Peninsula and surrounding counties, is launching its HIE partly to improve the distribution of results and reports, demonstrate the meaningful use criteria for government electronic health record (EHR) financial incentives, and advance its plan to strengthen physician alignment in a community dominated by small, independent practices.
Following the rollout of RelayHealth's results management solution to the medical community slated for the fall, CHOMP will add other components of the HIE network specifically for physicians, including electronic prescribing, referral management, colleague-to-colleague communication, and connected orders. Connected orders allows physicians with or without an EHR to place orders for diagnostic tests, medications, patient care and referrals electronically. For patients, the HIE will offer a menu of messaging services to communicate with their physician and the group practice staff, including personal health records (PHRs), prescription refills, appointment scheduling, delivery of lab results, and webVisit® consultations.
CHOMP's 288 physicians will have access to RelayHealth even if they do not have an EHR system. While the hospital is offering subsidies to practices that acquire EHRs, its leaders realize that many physicians will abstain. "RelayHealth gives those practices certain clinical integration and health information exchange capabilities that otherwise wouldn't be available," McNamara noted. "Our desire is to help our physicians perform certain functions such as eprescribing to receive Medicare reimbursements and physician-to-physician referrals that can protect their revenue streams."
CHOMP will also use the system to share data with the Bay Area HIE, a collection of hospitals and practices currently sharing information for the improvement of healthcare in their Northern California communities.
The hospital is based in an area where several groups are exchanging health information and several HIE vendors are active. However, CHOMP chose RelayHealth because of the nationwide network of enrolled physician users. "Monterey is a major tourist mecca," McNamara said. "RelayHealth's national footprint may be of service to patients who visit from other areas of the country. If their provider at home is registered on RelayHealth, a CHOMP-affiliated physician can obtain their patient's health information, including the latest test results, clinical encounters and medications."
"The Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula shares our vision of a nationally connected network and the opportunity to transform healthcare as we know it today," noted Jim Bodenbender, president, RelayHealth Connectivity Solutions. "Our HIE platform, will help CHOMP and their physicians achieve a higher level of care coordination, clinical integration and patient engagement."
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