Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula (CHOMP) in California announced that has selected McKesson’s RelayHealth (Atlanta), a provider of healthcare connectivity services, for its health information exchange (HIE) connectivity solution to improve the quality of care and safety for its patients, create closer alignment with its physicians, and address the governance issues that arise in the process of connecting healthcare communities.
The 205-bed hospital, which serves patients in the Monterey Peninsula and surrounding counties, is launching its HIE partly to improve the distribution of results and reports, demonstrate the meaningful use criteria for government electronic health record (EHR) financial incentives, and advance its plan to strengthen physician alignment in a community dominated by small, independent practices. The hospital chose RelayHealth partly because the solution manages governance and support issues through its SaaS network model.
Following the rollout of RelayHealth’s results management solution to the medical community slated for the fall, CHOMP will add other components of the HIE network specifically for physicians, including electronic prescribing, referral management, colleague-to-colleague communication, and connected orders. Connected orders allows physicians with or without an EHR to place orders for diagnostic tests, medications, patient care and referrals electronically. For patients, the HIE will offer a menu of messaging services to communicate with their physician and the group practice staff, including personal health records (PHRs), prescription refills, appointment scheduling, delivery of lab results, and webVisit consultations.
CHOMP’s 288 physicians will have access to RelayHealth even if they do not have an EHR system. While the hospital is offering subsidies to practices that acquire EHRs, its leaders realize that many physicians will abstain. CHOMP will also use the system to share data with the Bay Area HIE, a collection of hospitals and practices currently sharing information for the improvement of healthcare in their Northern California communities.
