The Michigan Health Information Network Shared Services (MiHIN) is adding FHIR-based infrastructure to its next-generation health information exchange platform to enable new and advance data-sharing use cases and analytics services.
MiHIN said it is leveraging Toronto-based Smile Digital Health’s Health Data Fabric (HDF) in the next phase of its digital transformation.
MiHIN is Michigan's nonprofit, state-designated HIE, providing patient information to doctors, clinics, federally qualified health centers, hospitals, pharmacies, health insurance providers, and public health in Michigan. MiHIN said it would use Smile to future-proof its modernization investment by building an open standards ecosystem and cloud-native computing. Along with Smile's privacy and security certifications, MiHIN said its scalability will allows it to enhance services to its Michigan customers and fast-track growth for MiHIN's national subsidiary HIE network operated by Velatura Public Benefit Corporation.
MiHIN and Velatura will also use its new FHIR advanced HDF to support Velatura's gateway hub as part of the national Patient Centered Data Home (PCDH) initiative.
"Enabling meaningful health data sharing hinges on open standards, freeing information from silos and fostering seamless integration between data and care," said Tim Pletcher, executive director of MiHIN, in a statement. "Smile's steadfast dedication to open standards perfectly aligns with MiHIN's unwavering drive to establish a forward-looking and market-responsive HIE, facilitating the seamless integration of clean, actionable data, real-time quality measures, point-of-care clinical insights, and more."
MiHIN said it had to consider many necessary attributes when planning the modernization of its HIE and how Smile could support the transformations. Smile's event-driven design was a requirement to enable real-time data exchange and updates. MiHIN also needed Smile's open standards-based platform to ensure seamless interoperability between the healthcare ecosystem stakeholders and data utilizers.
"Quality healthcare requires quality data and insights to ensure positive patient and population health outcomes. MiHIN's use-case factory and equitable business models are a perfect match for our FHIR data platform to ensure the safe, just-in-time, delivery of contextualized information wherever the patient chooses to get their care,” said Shane McNamee, M.D., Smile’s chief growth officer, in a statement. “This move ensures that they can scale with growing data volumes due to increasing demands as they grow with Velatura. A next-generation HIE will significantly improve healthcare data exchange and overall patient care. We're proud to play a crucial part in MiHIN's continuing digital transformation."
In January 2023, Smile announced the closing of approximately $30 million in Series B growth capital led by existing investors including UPMC Enterprises.
