Group Develops EMR-Less HIE Technology

A pair of major tech players and a group led by Geisinger have come together to create tools making health information exchanges accessible to providers who don’t have an EMR in place. The tools are aimed at skilled nursing facilities, but from what I can see, the approach would work for other providers too.

Federal standards already require SNFs to submit MDSs — which are electronic patient assessments — to both the Medicare and Medicaid programs. The thing is, MDS data doesn’t conform to the Continuity of Care standard, so it can’t be shared amongst various providers across an HIE.

What’s happening is that Geisinger’s Keystone Beacon Community and GE-Microsoft joint venture Caradigm have created a MDS (minimum data set)-to-CCD transformer which turns patient care data into a Continuity of Care Document.  Providers can then take their CCD document and transfer it to  an HIE.

The Keystone Beacon Community, which is part of an HHS-backed program established in 2009, was launched to speed up the ability of health IT to transform local healthcare systems.  Keystone includes a network of 17 central Pennsylvania providers, including medical practices, hospitals, long-term care communities and others.

I’m not surprised to see Geisinger driving this train, as it’s been ahead of the EMR curve for many years. Geisinger is also large enough to conduct a real test of new technologies, as its network single-handedly serves more than 2.6 million residents of 42 area counties.

Still, I’ve got to wonder whether efforts like the Direct Project aren’t a better place to invest energy at the moment. It seems to me that Direct Project technologies are far simpler to deal with and still get a great deal done. But then again, maybe I’m just being a party pooper.  Nonetheless, I can’t help feeling that in this situation, less (complicated technology) is more.

About the author

Anne Zieger

Anne Zieger is a healthcare journalist who has written about the industry for 30 years. Her work has appeared in all of the leading healthcare industry publications, and she's served as editor in chief of several healthcare B2B sites.

   

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