SAN JOSE, Calif. & MURRAY, Utah--()--The Utah Health Information Network (UHIN) today announced a new pilot program to connect rural health care providers in the Moab, Utah region with the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) to improve access and coordination of patient care for veterans and service members living in rural areas.
“Allen Memorial Hospital is pleased to be a part of the VA information exchange initiative”
As the state designated Health Information Exchange (HIE), UHIN has partnered with Axolotl Corp., a provider of HIE services and solutions, to enable the clinical Health Information Exchange (cHIE) connection to the VA, using the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN) protocols.
This is the fifth in a series of nationwide pilot programs to expand services to Veterans through access to the Nationwide Health Information Network. It is the first pilot with the explicit mission of extending services to rural areas, and among the first to enable the electronic exchange of VA patient data between VA and non-VA clinicians across the state. Authorized physicians will also be able to query the cHIE to view documents from VA-participating physicians located in the rural communities.
The VA will monitor this pilot closely to assure that Veterans’ privacy, security and safety is the highest priority, while determining whether to expand the pilot to other rural areas.
“The Department of Veterans Affairs is pleased to partner with the Utah Health Information Network, as we extend the reach of VA services to Veterans in rural communities,” said Dr. Tim Cromwell, director of Standards and Interoperability for the Veterans Health Administration. “Seven out of ten Veterans receive some portion of their health care from private sector hospitals and clinics, such as those served by UHIN. VA is grateful to have such strong and visionary partners in the state of Utah to pursue this pilot project.”
“UHIN is focused on creating solutions that work for the entire health care community, and we are honored that this pilot allows us to extend our clinical information network to our Veterans and Service Members in rural areas,” said Jan Root, PhD, president of UHIN.
Allen Memorial Hospital in Moab, Utah will be the amongst the first UHIN community providers to participate in the pilot. “Allen Memorial Hospital is pleased to be a part of the VA information exchange initiative,” said Roy Barraclough, CEO and administrator, Allen Memorial Hospital. “The pilot program will allow the hospital and its medical staff to better serve the health care needs of this important segment of our population, and is consistent with our local health care delivery system's efforts to continually improve access to high quality care.”
Axolotl’s compliant Inter-HIE Gateway will enable the bi-directional exchange of documents between the cHIE and NHIN partners in the area, including the VA. Axolotl’s Elysium® Exchange suite of applications, which powers the UHIN’s cHIE, provides clinicians, hospitals and other authorized users a way to share and view patient information in a secure, electronic environment.
“We are excited to launch this pilot with UHIN and honored to collaborate with the VA in order to serve veterans living in rural areas,” said Glenn Keet, president of Axolotl.
About Utah Health Information Network
Utah Health Information Network (UHIN) is a broad-based coalition of Utah health care insurers, providers, and other interested parties, including the Utah State government, that currently serves all the hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers, national laboratories, and approximately 90 percent of the medical providers in Utah. Since 1993, UHIN members have come together for the common goal of reducing health care costs and improving the quality of care through the use of electronic data interchange (EDI). To learn more, visit www.uhin.org.
About Axolotl Corp.
Founded in 1995, Axolotl Corp. is North America’s leading provider of browser-based products and services for secure health information exchange and management. Its Elysium® Exchange suite of solutions enables health care providers to instantly share information, reduce costs and improve quality and efficiency.
Elysium helps thousands of health care entities—including hospitals, health systems, regional health information organizations (RHIOs/HIEs), clinics, laboratories, radiology centers and physician practices—to securely exchange clinical information for more than 35 million patients. Elysium’s community-wide Master Patient Index, EdgeServer(s), Interoperability Hub™ (I-Hub), Community Virtual Health Record (VHR), and ambulatory EMR with integrated e-Prescribing are all provided as software as a service (SaaS). Axolotl-employed U.S.-based transcriptionists, combined with an integrated NLP engine, provide high-quality medical transcription services for acute and ambulatory care environments connected to Elysium HIEs.
Axolotl is part of Ingenix, a leading health information technology and services company. Based in San Jose, Axolotl is known for introducing Clinical Messaging®, now at the heart of all advanced health information exchange. For more information visit www.axolotl.com and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/axolotlcorp/
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