Kansas Health Information Network Selects ICA for Multi-State HIE

Informatics Corporation of America (Nashville, Tenn.) announced that it has executed a contract to provide health information exchange services with the Kansas Health Information Network (KHIN) based in Topeka, Kan. The KHIN members include the Kansas Medical Society, the Kansas Hospital Association, and the two health information exchange organizations representing the large urban areas of Kansas, eHealthAlign in Kansas City and the Wichita Health Information Exchange (WHIE). KHIN, in conjunction with its partners, will provide health information exchange services using the CareAlign solution to the entire state of Kansas and portions of western Missouri. This will allow health care providers to align with state-designated mandates to ensure that patients, providers and communities have long-term access to cost-effective and sustainable health information exchange services. KHIN will draw upon CareAlign’s powerful clinical informatics engine to improve patient care coordination and quality while ensuring patient privacy.

A landmark 2010 survey of organizations working on health information exchange conducted by the eHealth Initiative found significant cost reductions for physicians, hospitals, payers, and patients are possible. For example, 50 percent of respondents reported a reduction in cost of clerical administration time from 2009 to 2010; 30 percent saw a reduction in lab and radiology staff time; 75 percent reported a reduction in redundant tests; 78 percent realized a reduction in medical errors; and 133 percent reported a reduction in write-offs or accounts receivables for providers. In addition to greater efficiency and cost savings, this level of flexibility will create an infrastructure to fulfill provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) that tie incentive payments to the meaningful use of EHRs.

The CareAlign engine serves as the foundational piece of the solution, facilitating the flexibility to meet changing market demands. The system can receive standardized data (HL7, CCD, CCR, XML and others), as well as non-standard data. Discrete data is stored as individual data elements, and unstructured data is tagged with identifying indicators and stored for appropriate display, query, and reporting. Information from various participants is securely housed in individual data vaults with patient matching capabilities to display the information across clinical settings.