A regional health information organization in Rochester, N.Y., plans to expand its outreach and help area physicians adopt electronic medical record systems.
Rochester RHIO was recently awarded two state grants that support those aims. The grants, totaling $12.7 million, came through HEAL NY, the Health Care Efficiency and Affordability Law for New Yorkers grant program. In March, the state made grants worth $105 million to 19 community-based health information technology projects. Rochester RHIO is one of three organizations that received two grants.
The RHIO mainly focuses on exchange of clinical information among hospitals, radiology groups, laboratories and community physicians. But the state funding will help the organization “start moving out from a hospital-to-physician model to consider the whole…umbrella of care that goes on for a patient,” said Ted Kremer, executive director at Rochester RHIO.
The RHIO plans to bring into the exchange constituencies such as elder services, home care and long-term care facilities in addition to emergency medical services. Kremer also pointed to patient-based connectivity as part of the expansion. Patients using the exchange will be able to manage their consents and connect to employer- or hospital-supplied personal health records, he added.
Axolotl is the exchange’s technology vendor. The San Jose, Calif., company, which automates health information exchanges, announced the deal in January 2007. Among other products and services, Axolotl supplies a master index of the RHIO’s 1.2 million patients in the nine-county greater Rochester area.
HEAL NY funding will also support the adoption of electronic medical record systems. The RHIO, working in conjunction with the Monroe County Medical Society, will help physician practices evaluate, select and adopt systems.
Kremer said the RHIO lets physicians choose their own electronic medical record systems, but the systems must be approved by the Certification Commission for Health IT and be able to connect to the exchange.
A $600,000 grant from the Greater Rochester Health Foundation also contributed to the electronic medical record adoption program.
Government Health IT presents Rick Friedman, director of the division of state systems for the Center for Medicaid and State Operations with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in this recent eSeminar regarding how the federal Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services is partnering with state Medicaid and health and human services officials to bring Medicaid into the digital age. Paul McCloskey, Government Health IT editor, moderates.
