Results Delivery
For any clinical result from any participating HEALTHeLINK data source where a provider is a physician of record, HEALTHeLINK will route that result to an inbox format, accessible to that provider for review, within the HEALTHeLINK application. Results are from all HEALTHeLINK data sources including laboratory results, radiology reports and images, transcribed reports, and discharge medications.
If the provider has an Electronic Health Record (EHR) with an interface to HEALTHeLINK, the results routed to the provider will also be delivered to the provider’s EHR where they can be attached directly to the patient’s electronic chart. In addition, with this interface enabled, any record accessed through the patient summary can be shared to the connected EHR.
For a select number of data sources, image-enabled results delivery (IERD) will attach a link within a delivered radiology report that can directly access the associated image through the practice’s EHR.
Value to providers: This capability eliminates the need for faxes, manual scanning, and attaching clinical records to the patient’s electronic chart.
Continuity of Care Document (CCD) at the Close of an Encounter
At the end of a patient encounter in a provider’s office, select information will flow from the provider’s EHR to HEALTHeLINK. This information will add significantly to the patient information available in HEALTHeLINK and makes every provider office a potential data source.
Value to providers: This capability allows patient data captured in a provider’s office to be added to the longitudinal patient record in HEALTHeLINK to make available to others treating their patients. In the case of unexpected events that might bring down an EHR (e.g., a ransomware attack), a practice will have access to their own data so they can continue to treat their patients while the EHR is being brought back up. Additionally, CCD data can be used to facilitate quality reporting processes and population health analytics. CCDs from a growing list of practices are accessible today in the HEALTHeLINK application.
Secure Messaging (Direct Mail)
HEALTHeLINK’s secure messaging allows providers to send clinical information securely from one practice to another or to a community-based organization to provide necessary information to support patient care. HEALTHeLINK’s secure messaging solution can be connected to direct messaging solutions embedded in a provider’s EHR for providers with Direct Mail addresses. Both Healthcare Internet Service Providers (HISP) must be members of the Direct Trust Bundle to communicate with other secure messaging systems.
Value to providers: Eliminates the need to fax or scan sensitive patient information and securely makes it available to those in the community that might need the information to better service the patient.
Alert Notifications
With subscribe and notify functionality, HEALTHeLINK can create alerts for patients who have been admitted or discharged by allowing a provider to subscribe to a patient. If the patient has provided HEALTHeLINK consent, a care alert can be sent directly to a connected EHR or to a Direct Mail address in real time or delivered as a batch once a day.
Value to providers: Providers can be made aware of a patient’s admission/discharge event to help coordinate transitions of care from the hospital to the primary care setting.
EHR Query of HEALTHeLINK
Enables queries directly to HEALTHeLINK from a provider’s EHR. Once the query is launched, it will move directly to the patient’s HEALTHeLINK record.
Value to providers: Streamlined access, with only one click, to the patient’s record within HEALTHeLINK for providers and their staff.
HEALTHeCOMMUNITY Portal
The portal provides a single sign-on (SSO) with two-factor user authentication and access to HEALTHeLINK. For providers with credentials, the HEALTHeCOMMUNITY Portal can also provide access to New York State Department of Health’s Health Commerce System (HCS) where providers can access the Tracking Over-Prescribing (I-STOP) application to see a patient’s history of prescriptions for controlled substances.
Value to providers: The single sign-on provides ease of access, eliminating the need to enter credentials multiple times, while providing security and assurance that a user accessing clinical information is authorized to do so. To community providers, the portal provides a single location for secure access to a variety of health care applications hosted by multiple entities.
Query Based Patient Summary Record
The Patient Summary record, available through HEALTHeLINK’s platform, provides access to a patient’s clinical records, with their consent, from all HEALTHeLINK data sources. In addition, any CCD uploaded at the close of an encounter may be viewed. If the practice has a Results Delivery interface to an EHR enabled, a provider can share any result from the user interface (except radiology images) to the provider’s EHR.
Value to providers: The patient summary allows a provider treating a patient access to clinical records that may not be in the patient’s chart because the provider was not copied on the clinical results, or the provider was not a physician of record for a particular result. This is especially useful in acute settings for specialists preparing to treat a patient who needs the full clinical history, and for providers who are seeing a patient for the first time and need their clinical history. This eliminates the need to call various data sources to search for clinical data and is available at any time day or night.
Statewide Patient Record Lookup (sPRL)
This allows providers from all Qualified Entities (QEs) in NYS, of which HEALTHeLINK is one, to query and retrieve patient information from all other QEs in NYS through the SHIN-NY.
Value to providers: With patient consent, providers can access a patient’s medical information from across NYS.
Digital Image Exchange
Provides authorized users of HEALTHeLINK with access to diagnostic quality radiology images from multiple picture archiving and communication systems (PACS). The Digital Image Exchange allows for the access of radiology images in several ways:
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- From the Patient Record Look-up, a user can access an image directly from the associated radiology report with one click.
- Through Image Enabled Results Delivery (IERD) a PIN secured link can be included in a radiology report sent directly to a practice EHR. This link allows for direct, immediate access, from the EHR, to the image associated with that report.
- Real time collaboration on radiology images. This allows two providers to simultaneously view and interact with a single image.
- Transfer to PACS – This will allow radiology centers who provide images to HEALTHeLINK to import non-owned images into their local PACS.
- Automated Imaging Workflow- This allows for images to be transferred to connected imaging facilities automatically based on a predetermined rule set. This transfer is triggered by an order from the requesting facility.
Value to providers/patients: Provides simple, secure access to images from any PACS connected to HEALTHeLINK. No more lost images, films, or CDs. Patients receive the most effective and efficient care because of immediate access to radiology images, as well as radiology reports. It also improves patient safety by helping eliminate radiation exposure associated with duplicate exams.
Value to providers: Aids the provider during medication reconciliation and helps to prevent adverse drug interaction and overdose.
Population Health Services
HEALTHeLINK’s Population Health services includes the exchange’s robust clinical data set combined with regional payer data to provide a tool that can support health care organizations to manage value-based payment activities. This tool, HEALTHeOUTCOMES, provides patient attribution, common metric calculations to close gaps in care, risk scoring/stratification, condition specific registries, and both cost and utilization measures. The HEALTHeLINK Population Health team supports organizations with integration of this data into effective practice workflow.
Crisis Response Services-Cybersecurity Event
HEALTHeLINK can provide invaluable services in the time of a ransomware or other cyber-attack resulting in an inability to access the facility’s own EHR system. This would include access to the facilities data if they have been a data source, on-site support for user administration, and release of data for re-population of patient data in a new EHR.
HEALTHeLINK Enhanced Services
Clinical Data Registry Reporting
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) defines a Clinical Data Registry (CDR) as a registry administered by, or on behalf of, other non-public health agency entities. Clinical Data Registries provide information that can inform patients and their health care providers on the best course of treatment and for care improvements. In addition, CDRs can support specialty reporting by developing reporting for areas not usually covered by public health agencies but that are important to a specialist’s provision of care. CDRs can also be used to monitor health care quality and resource use.
HEALTHeLINK is considered a CDR under the Promoting Interoperability Category and Public Health and Clinical Data Exchange objective and can provide practices with an attestation supporting this objective.
Clinical Data Registry Reporting Attestation & Service Description
Support for Research/Analytics
HEALTHeLINK provides support for a growing list of research efforts focused on population health reporting and treatment efficacy studies. HEALTHeLINK is the source of a community-wide Master Patient Index (MPI) that is invaluable in compiling research data from multiple data sources.
User Authentication and Administration
HEALTHeLINK provides the following core operational processes to the community in support of the web-based, interoperability, and other customer-facing services described above.
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- Provide practice account management and project administration – Guide the practices through the process of becoming HEALTHeLINK participants including training in the use of the HEALTHeLINK application. Coordinate and manage the implementation of projects and services and manage the activities of all the HEALTHeLINK practice-facing services to deliver seamless customer service over time.
- Manage patient consent – Establish and execute processes to capture patient consent reliably and accurately in compliance with state and local policies.
- Manage master patient index – Identify multiple record numbers for specific patients by comparing data source specific patient information with the community level patient index. Instances of multiple record numbers are communicated to the relevant data source as a means for them to improve the accuracy of their patient records.
- Administer users – Ensure that users are correctly established, and their accounts managed over time. Ensure that all provider-related data is correctly established as the routing of clinical results depends on the accuracy of this information. Manage a provider database as a community level master record of provider information.
- Conduct audits and manage privacy events – Perform various audits of access to patient information such as break-the-glass and same name access. Also, perform audits of access to specific patients or access by a specific user.