This past year has been one of solid growth and positive change at HealthInfoNet. We've connected a number of new hospitals (only three left) and dozens of ambulatory sites across Maine to the HIE. We've helped hundreds of individual providers achieve meaningful use bringing several million dollars in federal incentive money to Maine. Already connected to the large organizations and communities, we're reaching out to small, rural providers and helping coordinate care across the care continuum including behavioral health and long-term care. And lastly, we're leveraging the data we manage to support new care intiatives like accountable care organizations, patient centered medical homes and other health care reform efforts to help Maine move closer to achievement of the Triple Aim.

To keep up with all the work, we've welcomed several new staff members to our team and will be adding several more before the year is out. This means that in just three short years, we've outgrown the our current office building and will be moving just across the parking lot to a new building designed to accommodate more growth in the future. Check our fall newsletter and Facebook page for pictures of our new digs!

As I reflect on this past year, I can't help but recall January of 2006, when I was asked to return to Maine to build a statewide health information exchange organization. Maine was at that time, and still is, a pioneer in this area and when I began as CEO in June of 2006, there were 100 reasons this idea could have failed. It has not. Thanks to the hard work of HealthInfoNet's staff and the steadfast support of the HealthInfoNet Board of Directors, our provider community, state government, Maine patients and many others, the vision what could be has grown into a tangible example of what can be. To everyone that's had a hand in making this organization what it is today, I humbly say thank you and hope you'll continue to support us in the years to come. 

Devore Culver, Executive Director and CEO

2012-2013 Accomplishments

All Maine Hospitals Under Contract to Connect to HIE

In May 2013 HealthInfoNet received a signed contract from the last unsigned acute care hospital in Maine, meaning all are now under contract to connect to the health information exchange (HIE). HealthInfoNet has 35 (one more just added) of the 38 hospitals connected already and we expect the remaining three hospitals to connect by the end of the year. This will make Maine one of very few states in the country to have all of its hospitals connected to a query-based HIE. In addition to Maine's hospitals, HealthInfoNet is connected to 376 ambulatory provider sites including primary and specialty care practices, federally qualified health centers, mental health agencies, home health and long-term care providers. Read more on our website.

HealthInfoNet Part of States Innovation Model Grant Awarded to State of Maine

HealthInfoNet is one of three partners/subcontractors in the States Innovation Model (SIM) grant awarded by CMS to the State of Maine. Announced earlier this year, the three-year grant with total funding of just over $33 million will be used to help improve care and reduce health costs in Maine. Specific areas of focus include supporting current payment and delivery reform efforts and using health information technology to better understand cost and quality to inform health reform efforts across Maine. Proposed HealthInfoNet activities include the following:

• Providing automated notifications to care managers when MaineCare patients are admitted to a hospital emergency room or inpatient unit.
• Continuing to help Maine's behavioral health providers adopt health information technology including electronic records and the statewide HIE.
• Providing a method for patients to download their information in HealthInfoNet through a provider-based portal.
• Supporting quality of care measurements across the State.

 

HealthInfoNet Awarded at ONC's Annual Meeting

 

HealthInfoNet and the Bangor Beacon Community received a national award for use of health information technology this past winter. One of only three state programs to be awarded, Maine received the Meaningful Use Acceleration Award from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), part of the federal Department of Health and Human Services, at its Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. on December 12, 2012. The award recognized HealthInfoNet, Maine's Health Information Exchange (HIE) and Regional Extension Center (REC), and the Bangor Beacon Community for our collective efforts to expand the effective use of electronic health records, health information exchange and other technology tools to improve patient care and health outcomes in the state. The brief video (at right) was shown at the event.

 

 

A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words - HealthInfoNet to Include Medical Images

 

In mid 2012, HealthInfoNet announced it would create a statewide medical image repository, and for the first time, make medical images available in the statewide HIE. For the past several years, providers in Maine have been able to access diagnostic image reports, but not the actual images. Clinicians using the HIE have been asking for the images too for sometime, because while text reports are helpful, the picture is worth a thousand words. So, HealthInfoNet is creating a separate cloud-based archive managed by Dell, to store images and interface within the HIE. This will give providers fast, secure access to medical images and place these images in context with a patient's full medical history. In addition to the care coordination benefits, HealthInfoNet estimates it will save providers in Maine $6 million collectively in storage and transport costs over the first seven years, and will save patients from needing to request and transport the CDs or physical images between their providers. Read the announcement on our website.

Bridging the Digital Divide Between Mental and Physical Health

In January of 2012, Maine was one of five states awarded a federal contract to improve the integration of mental health and general medical care using health information technology. With help from the Hanley Center for Health Leadership and a broad group of stakeholders, HealthInfoNet used this funding to plan for and begin to connect 25 mental health agencies to the HIE. Five of those organizations will be able to share information (accessible only with patient consent), and the remaining 20 will be able to view their patient's medical information in the HIE. A number of those mental health providers are viewing information already and the first will share information within the HIE in the next several months. Also as part of that work, HealthInfoNet developed a toolkit to help these providers with EHR implementation and connection to the HIE. This toolkit is publicly available on our website. Related to this effort, HealthInfoNet has also been working to allow sharing of HIV information (also with patient consent) to support care coordination for Mainers living with HIV. For more information about the consent process for Mental Health and HIV information and what information will be available, visit our website.

Important New Features Added to HIE

 

HealthInfoNet's technical team added some exciting new features and functions to the HealthInfoNet Clinical Portal over the past year. 

• One of the most impactful new features is automated notifications to help our users better track patients as they move across the care community.Users can be notified when a patient under their care shows up at the emergency room, is admitted or discharged from the hospital or when key test results are available. This is critical to realizing effective management of patients with chronic conditions and is a key component of the toolset needed to support accountable care organizations.
• Another very important feature is the ability for users to create and download a Continuity of Care Document (CCD). This summary of the patient's HealthInfoNet record can be uploaded into the provider's own electronic health record system and printed out and handed to the patient themselves.
• We added a feedback button where users can quickly send a secure message to HealthInfoNet's IT support without leaving the portal.
• The portal contains new data types including active problems, immunizations, insurer and multiple and secondary diagnoses.
• Users can now link to the prescription monitoring program portal (PMP) from the HealthInfoNet Clinical portal. We hope to have a single sign-on solution in place for PMP later in 2013.

The technical team has also been working on a number of new services outside the HIE to provide further value to our participating providers. Two examples include reducing the cost of image storage as a Dell reseller and helping providers create an enterprise master patient index (EMPI) to link disparate patient records across their own IT systems. Stay tuned this next year to learn more about these and other new services. 

 

For more information about what we were up to this past year, visit our news page to read past news releases, news coverage and newsletters.

Fast Facts for June 2012 - June 2013

• New HIE provider connections: 
• Hospitals: 10
• Ambulatory: 140
• Percent increase in peak HIE access over last year: 242%
• Active HIE Users: 1,585
• Number of messages sent through HIE: 3.1 million per week
• New individual patient records added to HIE: 165,000 for total of 1,222,000  
• Of the 1000 Maine providers enrolled in the Regional Extension Center (REC): 
• 938 are live on a certified EHR
• 596 have met meaningful use stage 1
• Of the 22 Critical Access Hospitals enrolled in the REC: 
• 18 are live on a certified EHR
• 12 have reached meaning use stage one

About HealthInfoNet

HealthInfoNet is an independent, nonprofit organization using health information technology to improve patient care quality and safety.

The organization's core service is the management of a secure computer system, called a health information exchange (HIE), for doctors, hospitals and other care providers to share important health information and improve patient care. The HIE system links medical information from separate health care sites to create a single electronic patient health record, then allows authorized providers to see that record to support patient care. This lets providers quickly access the information they need to make more informed decisions about their patients' care, especially in an emergency.

The organization also serves as the Maine Regional Extension Center (REC), helping Maine's primary care providers and critical access and rural hospitals adopt and effectively use electronic health records (EHR) and achieve meaningful use.

Board of Directors

President: Nona Boyink, President, HealthReach Network & MaineGeneral Rehab & Nursing Care

Vice President: Richard White, General Manager, Employer and Provider Partnerships, Martin's Point Health Care

Treasurer: Karl Turner, Self-Employed Businessman

Secretary: Arthur Blank, President, Mt. Desert Island Hospital

Executive Member at Large: Richard Marston, Retired Paper Executive

William L. Caron Jr., CEO, MaineHealth

Richard Freeman, MD, Chief Transformation Officer, Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems

Dawn Gallagher, Esq. - Director, Office of the State Coordinator for HIT

Douglas Jorgensen, DO, Manchester Osteopathic Healthcare

Mary Mayhew, Commissioner, Maine Dept. of Health & Human Services

Peter Mills, Director, Maine Turnpike Authority

Rod Prior, MD, Health IT Consultant

Ann Sullivan, Consumer 

HealthInfoNet Management

Shaun Alfreds, Chief Operating Officer

Kim Bustamante, Director of Administration & Finance

Devore Culver, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer

Amy Landry, Communications Manager

Phil Profenno, Director of Implementation and Client Support

Todd Rogow, Chief Technology Officer

Katie Sendze, Program Director