Grant supports adoption of health information exchange in 31 counties
By Anne Byers, Nebraska Information Technology Commission
On July 27, 2015, the Nebraska Information Technology Commission was awarded a $2.7 million Advance Interoperable Health IT Services to Support Health Information Exchange (HIE) cooperative agreement (Grant Number 90IX0008) from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology to support the adoption of health IT, the exchange of health information, and the interoperability of health information technology. Partners in the two-year grant included the Nebraska Health Information Initiative (NeHII) and the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC).
The grant supported the adoption of health information exchange through NeHII in 47 facilities and health systems—including 21 Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs)—in 31 counties in Nebraska and in Montgomery County, Iowa. Through the grant, the number of hospitals and providers sharing data with NeHII increased from 28 to 53. Over 700 providers and clinical staff were added as users. New functionality implemented included population health analytics, the use of C-CDA exchange to provide information to NeHII, and an HIE to HIE gateway with the Missouri Health Exchange. Two Critical Access Hospitals were also successfully implemented to share syndromic surveillance data with the State’s syndromic surveillance system.
The grant also helped health care facilities integrate health information technology into their workflow. UNMC provided assistance in workflow integration to facilities participating in two rural communities selected as integrated communities. Lessons learned are being shared through use case-based training modules. UNMC partners also worked with NeHII to demonstrate the ability to utilize NeHII to conduct research.
For more information, see the full report.
From the Fall 2017 issue (PDF) of Nebraska Broadband