Less than one year after announcing a new initiative to securely exchange electronic health data, the five innovative and leading health systems that make up the Care Connectivity Consortium, will demonstrate their data exchange technology and process at the 2012 Annual Health Information Management Systems Society Conference in Las Vegas, Nev. Feb. 20-24.
The Care Connectivity Consortium, which consists of Geisinger Health System (Penn.), Kaiser Permanente (Calif.), Mayo Clinic (Minn.), Intermountain Healthcare (Utah), and Group Health Cooperative (Wash.), announced its mission to create a way to safely and securely exchange patient health information among their disparate electronic health record systems in April 2011, just nine months ago.
The organizations, each of whom are pioneers in the use of electronic medical records for their patients, share the belief that electronic medical information is one of the most important care support tools available in world health care today. The Care Connectivity Consortium will demonstrate publicly for the first time since its formation, its advancements in data sharing and discuss milestones for the future of the Consortium. Among the many activities taking place at HIMSS is a View from the Top session that will feature George Halvorson, chairman and chief executive officer of Kaiser Permanente; John Noseworthy, MD, president and chief executive officer, Mayo Clinic; and Charles W. Sorenson, MD, president and chief executive officer, Intermountain Healthcare.
The Care Connectivity Consortium will engage attendees with real-time demonstrations of the data sharing capabilities between its five member organizations at the Interoperability Showcase Booth #11000 in Exhibit Hall G. Visitors will experience the exchange in a booth mirroring two clinical environments. Clinical and technical representatives from each organization will rotate demonstrating a scripted data exchange scenario. Attendees will view health information exchange solutions at work and hear from providers who use them every day in their clinical environment. The HIMSS Live Exchange theatre is a unique opportunity for attendees to bridge the gap between their technical and clinical knowledge.
Showcase Theater presentations will be held continuously throughout the conference. Each Care Connectivity Consortium organization will have one 45-minute presentation at the Interoperability Showcase Theatre focusing on one CCC key message in their presentations.
The goal of the consortium is to demonstrate better and safer care for patients with better data availability. If a patient from one system gets sick far from home and must receive health care in another system — or if any system sends patients to another — doctors and nurses at each of the consortium systems will be able to easily and quickly access invaluable information about the patient's medications, allergies and health conditions, allowing them to provide the right kind of treatment at the right time and avoid unintended consequences like adverse medication interactions.
Members of the Care Connectivity Consortium have a clear vision that the same benefits of the full medical information that exists in each of the organizations' EHR systems should be extended to all patients by connecting all communities and the nation in order to improve health care for all Americans. The collective goal is to implement first generation CCC interoperability tools over the next year, in a manner consistent with national health IT standards. The consortium partners are already clear leaders in health IT implementation — all are committed to sharing experiences with the health care community to improve care delivery and outcomes for all patients in America.
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