Axolotl, HealthInsight partner to create Nevada HIE suite

HealthInsight, a private, non-profit organization dedicated to improving Nevada's health care system, announced today that it has selected Axolotl Corp. to build the community-based Health Information Exchange (HIE) infrastructure to help Nevada providers improve the timeliness, quality, and coordination of care for their patients.

The Nevada HIE will enable physicians to automatically update and securely receive and share patient information in real-time to support care and treatment decisions for their patients at the point of care, whether in their offices or at hospitals. Further, the Axolotl technology will enable providers to access key clinical information, including laboratory results, radiology reports and referrals, and to electronically submit and renew prescriptions from their electronic health record (EHR) system - without having to install specialized hardware and software in their practice.

HealthInsight serves as the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Chartered Value Exchange (CVE), designated by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, the Medicare Quality Improvement Organization (QIO), and the Regional Extension Center in Nevada. The CVE is a multi-stakeholder collaborative that has convened health care purchasers, health plans, providers, and consumers in the state to advance transparency of health care, adoption of health information technology, and alignment of financial incentives with quality and improvement goals.

HealthInsight will implement Axolotl's Elysium® Exchange HIE suite of applications to connect the disparate hospital health information systems and existing physician office EHRs across Nevada. Physicians not already using EHRs can quickly connect to this HIE using any certified EHR, Axolotl Elysium EMR Lite or Axolotl EHR, both certified by the Office of National Coordinator Authorized Testing and Certification Body (ONC-ATCB) 2011/2012 for achieving Meaningful Use. These technologies are pre-integrated and fully interoperable, connecting physicians at no cost, for secure, electronic communication and collaboration.

Authorized and participating physicians across Nevada will also be provided with secure, one-click access to the Axolotl Virtual Health Record (VHR), which retrieves and displays all available patient data from across the entire continuum of care.

Early adopters of the Nevada HIE that will begin sharing patient information include primary care and specialty physician groups and 11 hospitals in Northern and Southern Nevada. Plans include expanding the HIE to additional providers and to rural Nevada.

"Our mission is to attain a high quality, comprehensive health care system through the development of health information technologies, information sharing, and incentive programs that improve the quality and safety of care for people who live in Nevada," said Deborah Huber, vice president, Nevada Programs, HealthInsight. "In collaboration with Axolotl, and utilizing their proven service-oriented architecture (SOA)-based HIE solutions, we will be able to achieve our goal of enabling Nevada providers to securely exchange health information, and to create a sustainable and successful statewide HIE."

Glenn Keet, president, Axolotl Corp, said: "We are honored by the opportunity to partner with HealthInsight to create an HIE that will improve the quality and efficiency of care for residents of Nevada, and will serve as a model for initiatives in other states. We share concerns about the spiraling costs of health care and are inspired by the opportunity to enable an HIE that benefits physicians, hospitals health plans, and members of the communities they serve."

HealthInsight will be Axolotl's seventh statewide HIE customer, after Idaho, Maryland, Nebraska, Health Information Partnership for Tennessee (HIP TN), Utah and, in partnership with ACS, Kentucky. Axolotl also is engaged in a number of other statewide and RHIO initiatives around the United States.

Source: HealthInsight