Sunday, May 23, 2010

Colorado to Roll Out HIE

The Colorado Regional Health Information Organization (CORHIO) has selected Medicity to build the statewide information network. “The selection of Medicity is a first step towards building a statewide information network, which is vital to improving today’s healthcare system,” said Joan Henneberry, Executive Director for Colorado’s Department of Health Care Policy and Financing and CORHIO Board Chair.

CORHIO will use the company’s technology platform to implement HIEs across the state, starting with the San Luis Valley region. With letters of intent from healthcare organizations in Boulder, Colorado Springs, Northern Colorado, and Denver, CORHIO plans to introduce HIE in a second region this summer as part of CORHIO’s strategy to implement HIE community-by-community. In five years, CORHIO plans to connect over 85 percent of healthcare providers and hospitals in the state to the statewide HIE.

CORHIO is collaborating with Quality Health Network (QHN), a regional HIE operating out of Grand Junction that currently provides services to healthcare providers in western Colorado. The vast majority of physicians and pharmacies as well as two hospitals in the Grand Junction area are connected to the network which includes data on more than 400,000 patients.

“Now that CORHIO has picked a vendor, we can continue our progress towards deploying health information exchange throughout the state”, said Dick Thompson, CEO of QHN and CORHIO Board member.

CORHIO, a not-for-profit organization is collaborating with diverse groups including healthcare organizations and providers. CORHIO’s board of directors and partners include members from large, urban hospitals, rural hospitals and clinics, safety net and behavioral health providers, state health agencies, health plans, and healthcare associations representing 90 hospitals, more than 7,500 physicians and millions of patients in the state.