CareSpark, a regional health information organization based in Kingsport, Tenn., plans to go live next month with real-time clinical decision support.
The RHIO, which operates in the central Appalachians, last year tapped ActiveHealth Management’s CareEngine clinical decision support service.
CareEngine takes in clinical data from patient medical claims, pharmacy claims, and laboratory results among other sources. The system then analyzes this data against evidence-based clinical guidelines, identifies deviations form those guidelines, and generates a notice for physicians.
This analysis has been done on a batch-processing basis at the RHIO, with the notification of physicians taking about a day.
But in February CareSpark expects to launch a real-time capability. The RHIO has integrated the clinical decision support service to its master patient index and clinical data from providers will begin feeding into the system next month.
Holston Medical Group, a multi-specialty practice of more than 100 physicians, will be the first on board, said Liesa Jo Jenkins, CareSpark’s executive director.
CareSpark is also linking a clinical portal, based on Wellogic’s technology platform, into clinical decision support, Jenkins said. The portal will provide physicians access to notices generated via CareEngine.
CareSpark received a funding boost last year from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, which awarded it a $2.68 million contract as one of 12 regional demonstrations of a national network of health information exchanges.
The funding will support the testing and development of interfaces between the RHIO and other health information exchanges, according to CareSpark.
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.
