CORHIO Selected to Improve Information Exchange Technology and Care Transitions for New Grant Program

CORHIO, along with Quality Health Network, has been selected to provide services for the Colorado Advanced Interoperability Initiative.

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) awarded Colorado Dept. of Health Policy & Financing the Colorado Advanced Interoperability Initiative grant in 2015. CORHIO and Quality Health Network, Colorado’s two health information exchange (HIE) organizations, have been selected to provide HIE services for the program.

The overall goal of the program is to improve transitions of care and help ambulatory providers, behavioral health, and long-term and post-acute care organizations to exchange clinical data.This will enrich the community health records for patients, enabling their providers to see a more complete picture of medical history and recent encounters. “Colorado believes that a complete clinical view of the longitudinal patient record, which includes ambulatory, long-term care and behavioral health data, is of great value to providers. Transitions of care have been a struggle for [these organizations],” states the grant proposal.

Utilizing CCD Technology

The solution chosen to acquire data from these providers is Continuity of Care documents (CCDs). Long-term and post-acute care providers will be able to share the Minimum Data Set (MDS) and Outcome and Assessment Information Set (OASIS) information they are already required to send to CMS through a tool that converts the data into CCDs. Behavioral health organizations will be able to share patient information conforming to all privacy regulations via a patient-directed consent model. Ambulatory providers can send CCDs through their electronic health record system, if the system is already capable of doing so.

The project includes different milestones, such as the participating organization’s completion of a technical assessment to determine their capabilities to exchange data and once they are successfully sending CCDs into an HIE, evaluating the usefulness of this information in overall care transitions in the community.

Qualified Participants

Several provider practices and organizations have been identified as qualified to join this program and receive financial incentives and will receive further communications from either CORHIO or QHN. For CORHIO participants, to inquire whether your organization qualifies for this program, please contact CORHIO at info@corhio.org.