Cisco Systems is set to become the latest vendor partner to back the California Regional Health Information Organization’s health information exchange project.
CalRHIO said today that Cisco has agreed in principle to join the exchange’s technology partners, Medicity and Perot Systems. In March 2007, CalRHIO selected Medicity, teamed with Perot Systems, to build a Health Information Exchange (HIE) Utility Service. The service aims to provide California health care providers with secure electronic access to patient medical records, according to CalRHIO.
A CalRHIO spokeswoman described Cisco’s partnering pact as a “teaming agreement between Cisco and Medicity.”
Cisco’s role on the HIE project will include participating in strategy development, infrastructure design and deployment, and implementation services.
Hewlett-Packard has a similar partnership arrangement in the HIE initiative.
Implementation of the HIE utility service rests on obtaining private money to fund start-up costs. Those costs include building the statewide backbone infrastructure, marketing and communication, and CalRHIO’s operating budget, according to the nonprofit organization.
From the battlefield to the home front: Managing medical data
Government Health IT presents Col. Claude Hines Jr., program manager for the Defense Health Information Management System, in this recent InSight eSeminar. Col. Hines discusses the health information technology and tactical challenges faced by the military medical community in Iraq, Afghanistan and other areas of conflict. In doing so, he describes the current information technology solutions for transferring clinical data between battlefield care givers to health care personnel at military treatment facilities worldwide.
