Utah's state designated health information exchange will connect healthcare providers in a rural region of the state with the Veterans Affairs Department so they can share patient records of veterans and service members who receive treatment outside of the VA.
It's the fifth in a series of demonstration programs across the nation in which VA and private sector providers coordinate services to veterans through access to the nationwide health information network (NHIN), a set of standards and services that enable healthcare organizations to securely exchange patient data through the Internet.
The pilots are part of VA's virtual lifetime electronic record program (VLER), which seeks to develop a single electronic system to track the medical, benefits and administrative records of service members from their induction into the military throughout their lives as veterans.
The Utah Health Information Network will test the exchange of patient records between Allen Memorial Hospital in Moab, Utah, and its participating physicians with VA medical facilities, said Jan Root, president of UHIN.
The network serves all the hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers, national laboratories and approximately 90 percent of the medical providers in Utah.
Seven out of 10 veterans receive some portion of their healthcare from private sector hospitals and clinics, such as those represented by UHIN, said Dr. Tim Cromwell, director of standards and interoperability for the Veterans Health Administration.
VA is "pleased that UHIN's clinical health information exchange is joining the NHIN, providing an opportunity to extend services to veterans, especially those in rural areas of Utah," he said.
The Utah network and its partner Axolotl Corp., a provider of exchange technology and services, will use the vendor's Clinical Health Information Exchange (cHIE) to connect to the VA via the NHIN.
Authorized physicians will be able to query and view documents from the cHIE or VA-participating physicians located in the rural community. Axolotl's online gateway will enable the bi-directional exchange of documents between the cHIE and NHIN partners in the area, including the VA.
