RECENT NEWS
See AllHEALTHeLINK releases 2022 Report to the Community
BUFFALO, NY, February 1, 2023 - HEALTHeLINK, the health information exchange (HIE) for Western New York, is advancing its collaboration with the health care community to further expand the utilization of data to support strategies to improve health, increase access to care, and reduce health disparities. As highlighted in the HEALTHeLINK 2022 Report to the Community, this next step in the organization’s growth is the result of last year’s merging of Population Health Collaborative and the Regional Health Improvement mission into HEALTHeLINK. “Over the past 15 years, HEALTHeLINK has built the infrastructure to securely exchange clinical data and help participating providers with the information they need at the point of care,” said Dan Porreca, HEALTHeLINK executive director. “We are excited to take our collaboration with providers, hospitals, health plans, and the entire health care community a step further by building on our current offerings to support public health, population health, health equity, and quality improvement initiatives.” In addition to HEALTHeLINK’S work around addressing social determinants of health and improving health equity, a few of the major highlights from its 2022 Report to the Community include: With support from the Milbank Memorial Fund, HEALTHeLINK conducted a study to examine if population health analytics helped to improve care quality and efficiency in primary care practices enrolled in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Comprehensive Primary Care Plus (CPC+) program. Results showed that when HEALTHeLINK’s population health management tool and CPC+ are in place at the same time, practices tend to have significantly better outcomes compared with instances in which only one or none of the programs are in place. Addition of new offerings to help drive efficiencies and improve overall quality of care, including Emergency Department Summary Reports, which immediately generate specific queries for a predefined set of data when a patient has been registered at Erie County Medical Center’s emergency department. Launch and expansion of new population health-related services to help create efficiencies for health plans, provide custom metric reporting, and community research support. More than 1.1 million clinical results, such as lab tests and radiology reports and images were delivered monthly. This marks a 16% increase over 2021. Patient record lookup which enables participating HEALTHeLINK providers to instantly access a consented patient’s clinical record and obtain information such as test results, medication history, etc. totaled more than 8.2 million. Finally, in 2022 alone, the HEALTHeLINK team worked on a total of 83 different projects focused on improving the HIE foundation and enhancing the services offered to its participants. HEALTHeLINK also continues to collaborate with similar organizations across the state and country, including the Statewide Health Information Network for New York (SHIN-NY) and Civitas Networks for Health, to leverage and share best practices for improved quality of care. To view the 2022 HEALTHeLINK Report to the Community, please visit wnyhealthelink.com/2022. ### About HEALTHeLINK HEALTHeLINK serves as a resource for broad health system transformation through secure data-informed decision making for individual patient care and to support community investments with a purpose of improving health, health care, and collaboration with local health care providers and those who are connected via the Statewide Health Information Network for New York (SHIN-NY) to improve health outcomes and health care delivery, control costs, increase access to care, and improve health equity in Western New York. HEALTHeLINK is also a founding member of Civitas Networks for Health, a national collaborative working to use health information exchange to improve health. Providers and patients can visit wnyhealthelink.com or @HEALTHeLINK on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn for more information.
See AllHEALTHeLINK named Phase 1 winner in Health Resources & Services Administration Challenge
BUFFALO, NY, October 19, 2022 – HEALTHeLINK, the health information exchange for Western New York, announced today it is a Phase 1 winner of the Building Bridges to Better Health: A Primary Health Care Challenge sponsored by the Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA). The goal of this multi-phase challenge is to enhance access and care coordination to achieve better health and reduce disparities utilizing technical assistance solutions. There were more than 130 applicants from which HRSA selected HEALTHeLINK as one of 27 Phase 1 winners from across the country. Each winner was awarded $11,111 to help fund their project and move on to Phase 2 of the challenge. HEALTHeLINK’s project focuses on the design and development of its HEALTHeQUALITY technical assistance solution that supports Federally Qualified Health Centers to advance health equity. “Health center patients experience multiple barriers, such as environmental factors where they live and work, that may reduce access to health care and increase the risk of poor health outcomes,” said Drew McNichol, director of technology and security officer, HEALTHeLINK. “Through this project we are hoping to help health centers effectively improve patient outcomes with a technical solution to close clinical gaps in care and monitor social determinants of health, ultimately advancing health equity.” Phase 2 of the challenge recently launched and HEALTHeLINK will be putting HEALTHeQUALITY into production over the next several months to collect and measure the improvement of patient outcomes. The Building Bridges to Better Health: A Primary Health Care Challenge continues through August 2023. For additional details, visit https://www.challenge.gov/?challenge=building-bridges-to-better-health%3A-a-primary-health-care-challenge&tab=overview. ### About HEALTHeLINK HEALTHeLINK is a collaboration among hospitals, physicians, health plans and other health care providers in the eight counties of western New York State to securely exchange clinical information to improve the quality of care, enhance patient safety and mitigate health care costs. HEALTHeLINK is a certified Qualified Entity and part of the Statewide Health Information Network for New York (SHIN-NY), which enables providers to access their patients’ data from across the state. HEALTHeLINK is also a founding member of Civitas Networks for Health, a national collaborative working to use health information exchange to improve health. Providers and patients can visit wnyhealthelink.com or @HEALTHeLINK on both Facebook and Twitter for more information.
See AllStudy shows better patient outcomes in CPC+ practices utilizing population health management tools
HEALTHeLINK and the Milbank Memorial Fund collaborate to illustrate improved care and efficiency when both programs are in place at the same time BUFFALO, NY, October 6, 2022 – HEALTHeLINK, the health information exchange (HIE) for Western New York, with support from the Milbank Memorial Fund, conducted a study to examine if population health analytics helped to improve care quality and efficiency in primary care practices enrolled in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Comprehensive Primary Care Plus (CPC+) program. CPC+ is a federal program that provided resources and incentives for primary care providers to improve quality, access, and efficiency of care. The study results show that when a population health management tool and a value-based payment (VBP) model such as CPC+ are in place at the same time, practices tend to have significantly better outcomes as compared with instances where only one or none of the programs are in place. “While the CPC+ program creates incentives to reach higher goals, our population health tool – HEALTHeOUTCOMES – provides the means for reaching such goals, with real-time access to how providers are doing against quality measures,” said Dan Porreca, executive director of HEALTHeLINK. “As practices continue to shift towards value-based payment models and population health management, this study confirms practices had better outcomes in the CPC+ program when utilizing HEALTHeOUTCOMES.” HEALTHeOUTCOMES provides both clinical and claims data from participating providers and payers and enables practices to streamline information from multiple data sources to better identify trends in their practice. The study assessed data collected from four different groups of practices in the Western New York region, which had similar patient populations. However, only three of the four groups were enrolled in the CPC+ program; only two practices utilized HEALTHeOUTCOMES. Outcomes among the four groups were measured from January 1 – December 31, 2020. The group consisting of both CPC+ and HEALTHeOUTCOMES practices significantly outperformed their counterparts in various outcomes. When measuring data, membership in both programs together led to a 24.1% reduction in admission rates and a 21% reduction in outpatient surgery. It also reduced the length of stay in hospitals by 32.7% and the re-admission rate by 30.4% compared with practices that didn’t participate in either CPC+ or HEALTHeOUTCOMES. “Although the study is small, it raises several important issues,” said Lisa Dulsky Watkins, MD, a program officer at the Milbank Memorial Fund. “The federal evaluation of the CPC+ model looked exclusively at Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries, not at anybody covered by commercial insurance or Medicaid. This study examines that broader population and adds the impact of a high-functioning health information exchange, facilitating the population health tracking and improvement that CPC+ was designed for. By demonstrating a combined positive impact, it will add to the ongoing conversation about how best to support primary care moving forward.” To view the full study, “The Impact of Population Health Analytics on Heath Care Quality and Efficiency Among CPC+ Participants,” visit https://www.milbank.org/publications/the-impact-of-population-health-analytics-on-health-care-quality-and-efficacy-among-cpc-participants. ### About HEALTHeLINK: HEALTHeLINK is a collaboration among hospitals, physicians, health plans and other health care providers in the eight counties of western New York State to securely exchange clinical information to improve the quality of care, enhance patient safety and mitigate health care costs. HEALTHeLINK is a certified Qualified Entity and part of the Statewide Health Information Network for New York (SHIN-NY), which enables providers to access their patients’ data from across the state. HEALTHeLINK is also a founding member of Civitas Networks for Health, a national collaborative working to use health information exchange to improve health. Providers and patients can visit wnyhealthelink.com or @HEALTHeLINK on both Facebook and Twitter for more information. About the Milbank Memorial Fund: The Milbank Memorial Fund is an endowed operating foundation that works to improve population health and health equity by collaborating with leaders and decision makers and connecting them with the experience and sound evidence. Visit milbank.org for more information.
See AllGuide 2 Better Care
Throughout the year, various local health care leaders provide education about HEALTHeLINK as well as highlight the value and benefits of clinical information exchange here in Western New York.
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