Master Patient Index

eHI Releases Updated Health Information Exchange Toolkit

The eHealth Initiative recently released the second phase of the third generation of its Health Information Exchange (HIE) Toolkit, an online resource to empower health care leaders managing the challenges associated with developing, adopting, operating, and sustaining a health information exchange.

Phase II of the new eHI Toolkit is now online and available to the public. This "primer" addresses the next steps needed for starting an HIE - creating a sustainable model, technical aspects of connectivity, marketing and promoting of HIEs, enhancing services, and tracking progress. Links to sample sustainability documents and marketing materials are included. Phase I was published in April; it addressed creating a governance model, drafting legal and information sharing agreements, protecting patient privacy and more. The toolkit is available at http://www.ehealthinitiative.org/issues/health-information-exchange-hie/hie-toolkit.html

"Phase II of the toolkit includes essential elements for successful health information exchange," said Jennifer Covich Bordenick, Chief Executive Officer of eHI. "Sustainability is an elusive concept; therefore HIEs needs to choose the right technical platform and appropriately market themselves to attain to be sustainable. Phase II offers best practices on how HIEs can meet the demanding needs of the future."

Content for the Toolkit was developed through a collaborative process with the Connecting Communities Steering Committee, as well as interviews with leaders in the HIE field. Health information organizations across the country were consulted about the topics covered in this toolkit.

"The eHealth Initiative has a long history of providing valuable resources for those entities establishing an HIE", said Glenn Keet, President of Axolotl Corp (now OptumInsight). "This is easily the best and most comprehensive HIE Toolkit they have ever released, and I am proud of the part Axolotl played to help make it happen."

Since its inception in 2001, the eHealth Initiative has been a leading provider of resources to HIE initiatives around the country, and publishes the only comprehensive annual survey on the state of health information exchange. The survey was first distributed in 2004; last year a record 199 HIEs completed the survey.

The first HIE Toolkit, published in 2006, presented lessons learned from 12 HIEs. The second HIE Toolkit, published in 2008, incorporated best practices from 42 HIEs. The 2008 version was also built upon the vision of the eHealth Initiative Blueprint: From Consensus to Common Action, which provided principles, strategies and actions for improving health and health care through health IT and HIE.

CSC Highlights the Benefits of the Master Patient Index at eHealth ...

Leading international healthcare IT supplier CSC (NYSE: CSC) is using eHealth Week to highlight the benefits the Master Patient Index (MPI) has brought to Austria. A focus group, held with an Austrian representative of ITSV (IT Services for Austrian Social Security), will examine the contribution CSC has made to the country's new electronic patient record (EPR) system and explore how its technology can advance healthcare across Europe.

The focus group - being held on May 11, 2011 at 14.45 - will provide a customer perspective on the project to build an MPI for Austria's Electronic Health Record project, ELGA (Elektronische Gesundheitsakte). Dr Thomas Hladschik, of ITSV, will present the current status and future steps of this national initiative. Dr Harald Deutsch, vice president CSC Healthcare EMEA, will then present a broader perspective examining the vital factors which ensure that national eHealth initiatives are a success.

Dr Hladschik said: "ELGA is an important initiative by the Austrian government, the federal representations and the national social security system. The MPI is a vital part of the system, and we look forward to being able to discuss its benefits at the focus group. By giving immediate access to a patient’s records, wherever they were treated, not only improves efficiency but allows doctors to provide the best and safest care possible based on the latest information and helps to reduce hospital bureaucracy."

More broadly, CSC will use eHealth Week as a platform to show how its new generation of solutions offer connected healthcare for providers and patients everywhere. The company will also unveil a revolutionary telemedicine solution which can provide hospital-quality care to patients with chronic conditions in their own homes.

Visitors to the CSC stand can discover how its integrated care suite of products are the key to connected care. It extends from ePrescribing and workflow solutions to clinical portals which link up legacy IT systems to provide all relevant patient data in a single view. CSC solutions, often delivered through cloud technology, can increase efficiency, cut time, save money, improve outcomes and raise patient satisfaction levels.

In addition CSC will be showing its latest mobile solution, Patient in your Pocket™.

Medical Filing

Medical infobahn for Europe, proceedings of MIE2000 and GMDS2000

Essentials of Health Information Management, Principles and Practices

Managing healthcare information systems with Web-enabled technologies

Tutorial on software design techniques