May 2, 2008

"Perspective: Grants Enable HealtheLink to Turn Vision into Reality, Find Value for Sustainability"

By Patty Enrado

With its recent $5.2 million HEAL NY Phase 5 Health Information Technology grant  from the New York State Department of Health and State of New York, HealtheLink, the Western New York Clinical Information Exchange (WNYCIE), has amassed an impressive number of state grants and federal projects.

With regional health information organizations (RHIOs) and health information exchanges (HIEs) grappling with sustainability issues, HealtheLink is making sure that the grants it has won are aligned with its vision and strategy, said executive director Dan Porreca.

The seven HealtheLink charter members, which includes four major hospitals and three major health insurance plans in Western New York, are committed and recognize the importance of the HIE’s initiative – to share clinical information that will improve healthcare services, deliver better clinical outcomes and help control healthcare costs in the region, according to Porreca. “They are committed to getting this up and running,” he said.

In parallel to the work being done for the grant projects, HealtheLink is determining the value in clinical information sharing and who will derive value and be willing to pay. “The value proposition will derive sustainability,” he said.

HealtheLink received $3.5 million from a HEAL NY Phase 1 Health Information Technology grant in 2006 to develop e-prescribing and diagnostic data exchange capability. The completion of this initiative is due this summer.

A multi-physician group, which won a grant from the Medical Society for the State of New York (MSSNY )  to connect disparate electronic medical record (EMR) systems between different physician practices, approached HealtheLink to manage the project. “This project was aligned with our strategy to facilitate the flow of clinical information,” said Porreca. Connecting EMRs to enable data exchange also supports the work HealtheLink is doing for the HEAL NY Phase 5 grant.

HealtheLink has submitted its plan to MSSNY and is awaiting final approval on this two-year project that Porreca anticipates will commence in early summer. Using Axolotl’s technology, HealtheLink will build the “pipes” needed to connect the disparate EMR systems.

HealtheLink has begun work on its Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN) Phase 2 project, a Medication Management Use Case demonstration, which is part of a broader proposal by the New York eHealth Collaborative. The demonstration, which will be due at the end of 2008, “ fits in and complements” both HealtheLink’s HEAL 1 and HEAL 5 projects, said Porreca.

HealtheLink is also a partner with the New York State Department of Health in a $22 million award by the Centers for Disease Control. For its part, the HIE will be working independently on public health alerts and biosurveillance reporting. The project has just launched, with HealtheLink having submitted a statement of work.

“The key is having a strategy,” Porreca said. HealtheLink has made sure that everything it does – from going after grants to implementing projects – aligns with its defined strategy. “Start with a strategy,” he said. Organizations may need to make tactical adjustments, but follow-through of the strategy and vision are critical, he said.