MEDNET to display NHIN and health care information technologies at HIMSS annual conference

MEDNETWorld.com (MEDNET) will be featured at the March 1-4, 2010 Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) annual conference in Atlanta, Ga. with a special demonstration at the “Interoperability Booth” by MEDNET Chief Architect Seonho Kim and a special presentation on March 4 in Session 246 by MEDNET CEO John Fraser on Identity Management in a Federated Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN).

“Enabling Medicaid Eligibility Verification through the NHIN will allow providers, health care organizations and health information technology vendors to more quickly and cost-efficiently support administrative transactions between the health care provider and payer communities.”

Minneapolis-based MEDNET (www.mednetworld.com) is a world leader in NHIN connectivity and health care information (HIE) technologies and one of a small group of companies throughout the United States working with the federal government on the NHIN initiative.

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) is facilitating development of the NHIN – one of the largest initial rollouts of technology in U.S. history. The NHIN will connect health information exchanges, integrated delivery networks, pharmacies, government, labs, providers, payers and other stakeholders into a “network of networks” to provide complete, accurate and searchable health information at the point of diagnosis and care. This has the potential to improve health care quality, prevent medical errors, streamline administration and decrease paper work.

“The demonstration will show how administrative data is exchanged across the NHIN between a state Medicaid organization, an HIE and a healthcare provider,” said Kim. “Enabling Medicaid Eligibility Verification through the NHIN will allow providers, health care organizations and health information technology vendors to more quickly and cost-efficiently support administrative transactions between the health care provider and payer communities.”

Kim was appointed to lead the NHIN Medicaid Eligibility Project team to develop new NHIN specifications for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) as part of the Medicaid Information Technology Architecture (MITA) initiative. Kim has extensive experience designing distributed systems for academia and industry and sits on several national healthcare committees and NHIN workgroup and committees. Fraser was also appointed a member of the project team and will contribute his industry knowledge and expertise.

“Health information technology can improve individual patient care by providing complete, accurate, timely and searchable health information at the point of diagnosis and care, which allows for more informed decision-making,” said Fraser. During his HIMSS presentation, Fraser will talk about Phase 4 of the e-Authentication Pilot Project and how open source software solutions are critical to the success of the NHIN initiative.

The demonstration at the HIMSS “Interoperability Booth” will highlight the following process:

• Initiating authorized providers, HIEs or business associates will send a patient-specific Eligibility Verification Request (ASC X12N 270 message) to a state Medicaid organization over the NHIN. The payload is contained within the NHIN request message and is digitally signed and encrypted so that it can be sent safely and securely to a state Medicaid organization.
• The receiving state Medicaid organization will send a response back over the NHIN to the initiator, specifying whether the patient is eligible for health benefit plan coverage under Medicaid