Direct Messaging is secure email for the exchange of patients' protected health information (PHI) with known, trusted recipients. It allows you the ability to safely send notes, referrals, CCDs, diagnostic images, and summary of care records to other primary care providers, specialists, or hospitals that have a Direct email account.

For providers working to achieve Stage 1 Meaningful Use of their EHR, using Direct Messaging satisfies the core measure for electronic exchange of information when it is used to transport content exported from your EHR.
 

Through our Direct Adoption Program, RI REC is the only one of the 62 Regional Extension Centers nationwide to create a program to help providers with this new technology. Our program helps you choose from a group of qualified Health Information Service Providers (a HISP is needed for Direct Messaging) in our Vendor Marketplace.

As part of several RIQI initiatives, Direct Messaging has already been used to

• Exchange a Continuity of Care Document (CCD) for a patient before and after a visit to a hospital's emergency department. While a patient was en route to Newport Hospital, a nurse at Aquidneck Medical Associates created and sent a CCD via Direct Messaging to the ED before the patient's arrival. When the patient was discharged, Newport Hospital used Direct to send back an updated CCD to Aquidneck.
   
• Connect an EHR with currentcare, RI's Health Information Exchange. When triggered by a clinical transaction, Cumberland Primary Care's EHR automatically creates a CCD and sends it to currentcare via a Direct message, making consented patients' data available to all members of the patient's care team. This pilot project is the first in the nation to implement this Direct-based EHR-HIE interoperability: a platform-agnostic architecture that does not affect provider clinical workflow.

As part of its Beacon initiative, RIQI will soon launch a service to notify primary care providers via Direct Messaging when their patients are admitted or discharged from a hospital. 

Learn more about RI REC's Direct Adoption Program; print our Direct Messaging Setup Checklist; and register for our 30-minute Webinar.