New Program Allows More Colorado Dentists to Join Health Information Exchange

Colorado Dental Association and CORHIO partner on an initiative to help community dentists benefit from increased transparency with other providers.

The Colorado Dental Association (CDA) and CORHIO (a Contexture organization) are partnering to get the word out about how dentists can benefit from health information exchange (HIE). Dental care providers in the pilot program join CORHIO’s HIE and save the implementation fee ($10,000) plus receive two months’ service. The CDA is working with CORHIO to identify suitable candidates for the pilot. Upon completing the pilot, the CDA and CORHIO will partner to help Colorado dentists join the HIE.

“I am excited that this pilot program is available to our members and to share this valuable health information exchange with the Colorado dental community,” says Greg Hill, Executive Director/CEO of Colorado Dental Association. “The benefit of increased transparency with primary care and other providers is important to improving dental care for all Coloradans.”

Increased Transparency
Oral health and physical health often go hand in hand, so it’s important that more dentists and doctors share patient information. By participating in HIE, providers can securely open these critical lines of communication and fill in gaps in clinical knowledge. Access to the right health information at the right time improves the quality, efficiency and safety of patient care.

Some common scenarios where health information exchange could help dental providers better communicate with physicians:

• An oral surgery patient forgets to mention they’re taking blood thinners for a heart condition. With HIE, the information is all there for the oral surgeon in advance of any procedures.

• A primary care provider doesn’t know the dentist recently diagnosed their diabetic patient with gum disease. If both providers were on the CORHIO HIE, this information would be easily shared.

• A dentist suspects a patient of drug-seeking and has flagged their medical record, but the patient’s primary care physician is on a different system so is unaware. HIE operates outside of electronic health record systems so it doesn’t matter that the dentist and primary care physician are on different systems.  

Learn More
To learn how your dental office can join CORHIO and access real-time online patient medical summaries including health history, medications, recent procedures, test results and more, please contact Douglas Swords at douglas.swords@contexture.org