Southwestern Vermont Medical Center (SVMC) and Vermont Information Technology Leaders (VITL) have just completed a project that developed five connections to transmit health data from the hospital to the Vermont Health Information Exchange (VHIE).
According to officials of the organizations, the five interfaces were built to:
- Send immunization data from SVMC to the VHIE. The immunization data is then forwarded on to the Vermont Department of Health Immunization Registry.
- Modernize the existing laboratory results interface from SVMC to the VHIE.
- Send patient demographics, radiology reports, expanded laboratory results (pathology, microbiology and blood bank), and transcribed reports (information about procedures, admissions, discharges and consults) from SVMC to the VHIE.
The SVMC interfaces complete VITL's goal of connecting all 14 Vermont hospitals to the VHIE, the statewide health data network operated by VITL. Although SVMC has been contributing laboratory results to the VHIE for over eight years, the four new connections will increase the amount of clinical and demographic data available to providers involved in a patient’s care, better informing health care decisions, its officials say.
The final phases of the SVMC interface project included the addition of a move-in process, where engineers, analysts and project managers met face-to-face at the VITL office in Burlington. The interface teams met for two in-person sessions that lasted two weeks at a time, and allowed them to completely focus on integration and quality assurance testing of health data flowing from SVMC into the health information exchange, according to officials.
The new clinical interfaces allow SVMC data to be shared with any provider in Vermont. “Southwestern Vermont Medical Center has been a part of the VHIE for over eight years, and we have actively used the data network to distribute electronic lab results to primary care practices in the southwestern Vermont health care service area,” Rich Ogilvie, chief information officer at SVMC, said in a statement. “The additional connections deliver data and reporting abilities that will enhance the provider-patient care relationship in the Bennington service area and across the state.”
