A message from our board chair.
A little more than a decade ago, our region’s major hospital systems, health plans, and physician groups came together in a unique and unprecedented manner in an effort to improve the quality of health care in our community and to control escalating health care costs. As a result of these efforts, the Western New York Clinical Information Exchange, now known as HEALTHeLINK, was established. It became a way for medical professionals to securely and electronically access patients’ medical information across a broad spectrum of providers. Through the years, HEALTHeLINK has grown into one of the leading clinical information exchanges in the country and provides physicians and other medical professionals with better, more complete patient information where and when they need it most. Over the past decade, HEALTHeLINK has been recognized locally and nationally for driving innovation in the use of health information technology.
Today, HEALTHeLINK is delivering on its goals of improving the quality of care, enhancing patient safety, and controlling health care costs. Every hospital within the eight counties of Western New York participates, along with 892 physician practices. In addition, 894,457 Western New Yorkers have consented. Every five seconds, a physician uses HEALTHeLINK to search for important information to help guide clinical decisions.
HEALTHeLINK is enhancing the value it provides to Western New York’s physicians through a connection to the Statewide Health Information Network for New York (SHIN-NY). Earlier this year, we officially connected with the state’s seven other regional health information organizations to enable access to patient data for treatment purposes from anywhere across the state. HEALTHeLINK is also part of the Strategic Health Information Exchange Collaborative (SHIEC), which explores ways to expand connections among physicians who are treating common patients in different states.
Today, HEALTHeLINK is working, and its potential to help even more people in our community remains strong. There are still patients who have not elected to provide electronic medical record access to the medical professionals who care for them. HEALTHeLINK continues to focus on helping physicians tap into its full potential and educating patients on the benefits of giving their providers faster access to better information.
As the transformation of the health care industry continues, one constant here in our own community is the use of HEALTHeLINK to better connect physicians to their patients’ information.
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David Scamurra, MD
Chair, HEALTHeLINK Board of Directors
Pathologist, Eastern Great Lakes Pathology/X-Cell Laboratories of WNY
A message from our executive director.
Since our official launch in 2006, our main focus has been on building and strengthening the infrastructure for Western New York’s clinical information exchange and accelerating adoption of HEALTHeLINK by the local health care community.
For the last 10 years, we have worked hard to achieve success on both of those fronts. As the technology has evolved and more physicians utilize HEALTHeLINK, we maintain our commitment to improved user functionality and demonstrating the value of health information exchange to improve the quality of patient care, enhance patient outcomes, and positively impact health care costs. We’ve also reached a tipping point with participation from the majority of physicians, all our hospitals, and many other data sources, including laboratories, radiology practices, and long-term care facilities.
This year, we have added to our focus of increasing the quantity of data available to improving its quality. With more providers and organizations connected, patient data from participants’ electronic medical records (EMRs) are being sent to HEALTHeLINK in different ways. Therefore, we have launched a new tool focused on working collaboratively with our participants to improve the quality of data captured at the point of care. With improved data quality, HEALTHeLINK can take a more effective role in supporting population health and quality improvement initiatives here in Western New York.
Ensuring providers have their patients’ most current clinical information at the point of care or as patients transition among different care settings is critical for improving care quality and lowering the cost of care. In 2016, 2.5 million patient queries were performed, as compared with 1.6 million queries in 2015. In addition, with the launch of alert notifications, HEALTHeLINK is able to instantly and securely send alerts on hospital admissions and discharges for patients whom providers elect to track in order to improve care coordination and provide immediate knowledge of care transitions. This means instant access to information that’s crucial to both patient and doctor. In 2016, approximately 235,000 alerts were delivered to the more than 800 providers currently subscribed to this service. Moving forward, we plan to explore other opportunities for alerts and timely communication among treating providers, aiding in the overall transition of care.
These efforts to support care coordination and data quality improvement provide additional value to our participants as we improve utilization of the exchange. We have a very talented and dedicated staff that is passionate about the work we do to improve health care in Western New York. On behalf of all of us at HEALTHeLINK, thank you for your continued support, participation, and utilization of our health information exchange.
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Daniel E. Porreca
Executive Director, HEALTHeLINK
HEALTHeLINK Board of Directors.
David Scamurra, MD – Chair
Pathologist, Eastern Great Lakes Pathology/X-Cell Laboratories of WNY
Art Wingerter – Vice Chair
President, Univera Healthcare
Anthony J. Billittier IV, MD, FACEP
Emergency Physician, UBMD – Emergency Medicine
Chief Medical Officer, Millennium Collaborative Care
Michael Cain, MD
Vice President, Health Sciences Dean, School of Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, University at Buffalo
Michael W. Cropp, MD
President & CEO, Independent Health Association
Andrew L. Davis, MBA
Chief Operating Officer, Erie County Medical Center
Cletis Earle
Vice President & Chief Information Officer, Kaleida Health
Michael F. Galang, DO
Senior Vice President & Chief Information Officer, Catholic Health System
Ann Marie Odrobina
Administrative Vice President; Manager, Employee Benefits Administration, M&T Bank
Paul Pettit
Commissioner of Health, Orleans County Department of Health
Stephen Swift
Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer, HealthNow New York, Inc.
Everett Weiss, MD
Chief Medical Information Officer, Roswell Park Cancer Institute