The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) announced
today that providers and public health agencies in Minnesota and Rhode
Island began this month exchanging health information using
specifications developed by the Direct Project, an 'open government'
initiative that calls on cooperative efforts by organizations in the
health care and information technology sectors. Other Direct Project
pilot programs will also be launched soon in New York, Connecticut,
Tennessee, Texas, Oklahoma and California to demonstrate the
effectiveness of the streamlined Direct Project approach, which supports
information exchange for core elements of patient care and public
health reporting.
The launch of the pilot
demonstrations, less than a year from the inception of the Direct
Project, shows the project is on track to give U.S. health care
providers early access to an easy-to-use, internet-based tool that can
replace mail and fax transmissions of patient data with secure and
efficient electronic health information
exchange.
"This is an important milestone in our
journey to achieve secure health information exchange, and it means that
health care providers large and small will have an early option for
electronic exchange of information supporting their most basic and
frequently-needed uses," said Dr. David Blumenthal, national coordinator
for health information technology. "Other efforts are also going
forward at full-throttle to build a comprehensive structure of health
information exchange. But by bringing together health care and IT
companies, including competitors, to rapidly produce a system that
supports basic clinical delivery and public health needs, we will be
able to more quickly start building electronic information exchange into
our health care system."
Designed as part of
President Obama's 'open government' initiative to drive rapid
innovation, the Direct Project last year brought together some 200
participants from more than 60 companies and other organizations. The
volunteers worked together to assemble consensus standards that support
secure exchange of basic clinical information and public health data.
Now, pilot testing of information exchange based on Direct Project
specifications is being carried out on schedule this year, aiming toward
formal adoption of the standards and wide availability for providers by
2012.
"This is a new approach to public sector
leadership, and it works," said Aneesh Chopra, the United States Chief
Technology Officer. "Instead of depending on a traditional top-down
approach, stakeholders worked together to develop an open, standardized
platform that dramatically lowers costs and barriers to secure health
information exchange. The Direct Project is a great example of how
government can work as a convener to catalyze new ideas and business
models through collaboration."
The two pilot
programs that have already begun using Direct Project-based information
exchange are in Minnesota and Rhode Island:
Since
mid-January, Hennepin County Medical Center (HCMC), Minnesota's premier
Level 1 Adult and Pediatric Trauma Center, has been successfully sending
immunization records to the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH). "This
demonstrates the success that is possible through public-private
collaborations," said James Golden, PhD, Minnesota's state HIT
coordinator. "This is an important milestone for Minnesota and a key
step toward the seamless electronic movement of information to improve
care and public health."
Recognizing Minnesota's
leadership in delivering high-quality, cost-effective healthcare, U.S.
Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) said, "this is the type of innovation that
can help strengthen our health care system by reducing waste and
improving quality. We need to continue to improve our health care system
by continuing to integrate information technology to better serve
patients and providers."
The second pilot implementation site,
The Rhode Island Quality Institute (RIQI), has delivered a pilot project
with two primary goals. First, RIQI is improving patient care when
patients are referred to specialists by demonstrating simple, direct
provider-to-provider data. Second, RIQI is leveraging Direct Project
messaging as a means to securely feed clinical information, with patient
consent from practice-based EHRs to the state-wide HIE, currentcare, to
improve quality by detecting gaps in care and making sure the full
record is available to all care providers.
Discussing RIQI's collaborative approach to health
IT, Laura Adams, president and CEO of RIQI said, "All too often,
providers do not have the data they need to take the best care of
patients they serve. Direct Project allows the Quality Institute to be
on the cutting edge - providing health information exchange via
currentcare, delivering the efficient rollout of technology through the
Regional Extension Center, and enabling and measuring real patient
outcome improvements in our Beacon Community. The ability to bring
together and drive consensus among a diverse set of stakeholders has
been critical in the successful rollout of these innovative programs."
"Rhode Island continues to be a nationwide leader in
improving health care with better information technology," said Senator
Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI). "Health care providers communicating with
each other in a secure and cost-efficient way helps patients get better
sooner with less hassle and confusion."
Other pilot
projects to be launched this year include a Tennessee effort with the
Veteran's Administration, local hospitals and CareSpark to provide care
to veterans and their families; a New York effort including clinicians
in hospital and ambulatory care settings with MedAllies and EHR vendors;
a Connecticut effort involving patients, hospitals, ambulatory care
settings and a Federally Qualified Health Center with Medical
Professional Services, a PHR, and a major reference laboratory; an
expansion of the VisionShare immunization data pilot to Oklahoma; a
California rural care effort involving patients, hospitals and
ambulatory care settings with Redwood MedNet; and an effort in South
Texas with a collaboration of hospitals, ambulatory care settings,
public health, and community health organizations to improve care to
mothers with gestational diabetes and their
newborns.
The Direct Project was launched in March
2010 as a part of the Nationwide Health Information Network, to specify a
simple, secure, scalable, standards-based way for participants to send
authenticated, encrypted health information directly to known, trusted
recipients over the Internet in support of Stage 1 Meaningful Use
requirements. Participants include EHR and PHR vendors, medical
organizations, systems integrators, integrated delivery networks,
federal organizations, state and regional health information
organizations, organizations that provide health information exchange
capabilities, and health information technology consultants.
Information transfers supported by Direct Project
specifications address core needs, including standardized exchange of
laboratory results; physician-to-physician transfers of summary patient
records; transmission of data from physicians to hospitals for patient
admission; transmission of hospital discharge data back to physicians;
and transmission of information to public health agencies. In addition
to representing most-needed information transfers for clinicians and
hospitals, these information exchange capabilities will also support
providers in meeting "meaningful use" objectives established last year
by HHS, and will thus support providers in qualifying for Medicare and
Medicaid incentive payments in their use of electronic health records.
The Direct Project specifications can also support physician-to-patient
information transfers, and Microsoft Corp. today announced an
application for that purpose based on Direct Project standards. For more
information about the Direct Project, please visit http://directproject.org.
Other
ongoing efforts supported by ONC are underway to bring about a
comprehensive health information structure in the U.S. These include
technical and governance issues that are being addressed under the
Nationwide Health Information Network, which embodies the standards,
services and policies that enable health information exchange over the
internet. The Nationwide Health Information Network Exchange is already
supporting some health information exchange between federal agencies
and the private sector. In addition, ONC provides grants to states to
develop locally-appropriate policies and standards for health
information exchange that are consonant with broader national
standards.
For more information about the Office of
the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, please visit
http://healthit.hhs.gov.
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Note:
All HHS press releases, fact sheets and other press materials are
available at http://www.hhs.gov/news.
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