MEDITECH Demonstrates Interoperability at the NCHICA Conference
(9/28/2007)

As many states look to improve health care within their regions, North Carolina is discussing health information technology (HIT) as the answer. During the North Carolina Healthcare Information and Communications Alliance, Inc. (NCHICA) 13th Annual Conference and Exhibition, MEDITECH and other HIMSS Electronic Health Record Vendors Association (EHRVA) members took part in a "connectathon" demonstration of vendor collaboration and progress toward system interoperability. The demonstration followed the Integrating Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) Cross Document Sharing of Medical Summaries Profile. Each vendor participant demonstrated how their systems interact with a patient identity and medical document management solution and their ability to produce and consume medical summary documents into their EMR.

MEDITECH highlighted these features that are now in production at South Shore Hospital as part of their Community Hospitals and Physician Practice Systems (CHAPS) initiative. "Knowing that we have this level of interoperability LIVE, along with the ability to demonstrate this in a multi-setting environment truly validates our commitment to interoperability," says Barbara Hobbs, manager, EHR and interoperability initiatives for MEDITECH.

"To demonstrate how a patient's personal health information can be retrieved seamlessly from the patient's PHR to the primary care provider's office, and then retrieve a cardiology referral into the emergency department as the patient arrives with chest pain - in a LIVE environment - is exciting," says Hobbs. "Over 150 attendees, including customers as well as state and national representatives, saw a glimpse of interoperability in action."

The attendees witnessed first-hand how patient information and images flow securely through the care process end-to-end utilizing the latest Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP) standards and HL7 protocols. In real-time, MEDITECH demonstrated how an Emergency Department (ED) physician can view on-line external medical summaries available from the physicians' offices for the patients they are treating, and primary care physicians will receive discharge summaries following the treatments their patients receive in the ED.

Following the demonstration, an open-panel discussion spoke of the many opportunities and challenges of advancing EHRs to connect health care organizations and accelerating the adoption of health I.T. Rob Kolodner, MD, national coordinator for health information technology, and MEDITECH customer Morehead Memorial Hospital (Eden, NC) were on the panel. During the discussion, Dr. Kolodner acknowledged the vendors on a job well done.

"We were able to pull this together on short notice, and with only conference calls between participating vendors," says Phil Businger, MEDITECH's manager of interoperability. "This speaks volumes about the ability of the standards to be deployed quickly and easily, and the strength of our interoperability architecture."

NCHICA, a nationally recognized nonprofit consortium that serves as an open forum for health information technology (HIT) initiatives that improve health and care in North Carolina, held its conference, "The Cultures in Transition: Healthcare Consumers, Providers & Payers," from September 23rd to September 26th. For more information, please view the official EHRVA press release about the demonstration.

 

MEDITECH
Medical Information Technology, Inc.
MEDITECH Circle
Westwood, MA 02090
781-821-3000
www.meditech.com