Santa Monica, California – December 1, 2009 – Chatham County Safety Net Planning Council (CCSNPC) has selected Orion Health, Inc. to build the Chatham County Health Information Exchange (HIE) Pilot to serve the more than 250,000 people in the Southeast Coastal Georgia County.
Located in Savannah, GA, CCSNPC is charged with assisting the Chatham County Commission in developing a healthcare infrastructure that leverages available resources and maximizes strong local partnerships to improve access to and efficiency of healthcare services. Through increased access to care, enhanced capacity and improved efficiency within the community’s Safety net system, CCSNPC’s goal is addressing the health care needs of the uninsured and underinsured through ongoing collaboration and evaluation to deliver improved patient outcomes. CCSNPC have recognized that a critical piece in achieving these goals is to establish a health information exchange – beginning with a pilot project connecting one major hospital emergency department and one Federally Qualified Health Center in the county.
Chatham County is one of over 11 HIEs of which Orion Health technology is a large contributing component.
The HIE solution from Orion Health creates an infrastructure that allows for secure electronic exchange of health information among the Chatham County care providers. Orion Health Rhapsody Integration Engine software provides data exchange, messaging and public health reporting from the data store. The Orion Health Concerto Portal provides a web-based portal for Safety Net providers, and others involved in supporting the communities’ healthcare to securely view patient information. Orion Health also engaged with strategic partners Initiate who provided patient identifier and record locator services necessary for data exchange.
The Georgia Department of Community Health selected the CCSNPC HIE as one of three state demonstration projects and the Health Resources and Services Administration has awarded CCSNPC an earmark for equipment and software purchasing.
Paula Reynolds, MD, MPH, CCSNPC’s Executive Director says selecting Orion Health was the obvious choice to help fortify this infrastructure. “CCSNPC membership is committed to looking to improve our infrastructure through technology. After reviewing several other vendor’s products, we saw that Orion Health was able to provide an end-to-end solution to implement a world class, complete HIE infrastructure, scalable to our Pilot Project needs, but capable of expansion to grow with our communities needs. The initial cost of ownership and training available means that we can develop our own IT staff to support and manage the project.”
