HealtheConnections completes transition to new information-exchange platform

SYRACUSE — HealtheConnections, the regional health-information organization (RHIO) supporting 1.4 million people in Central New York, on Monday announced that the transition of all regional health information and services to its new health-information exchange (HIE) is complete.

Costa Mesa, Calif.–based Mirth Corp. is the new software vendor supporting the HIE, HealtheConnections said in a news release.

Its partnership with Mirth “increases capabilities and services that will deliver consolidated patient-health information for improved patient care,” said HealtheConnections (pronounced healthy connections).

Mirth and the HealtheConnections team collaborated and completed the migration “on time and on budget,” the organization said.

Health-care providers need access to patient health-care information and tools to help them make informed decisions, Robert (Rob) Hack, executive director of HealtheConnections, said in the release.

“Our transition to the Mirth HIE solution increases the provider-value proposition and will lead to increased productivity and efficiency. Mirth’s HIE solution presents providers the information and services needed for improved and effective patient treatment and coordination,” Hack said.

The transition effort means health-care professionals now have access to 28 million patient-health records for 1.2 million patients; one million patient consents; and 140 interfaces with 17 hospitals, six independent regional-diagnostic centers, 18 radiology-image repositories, and seven electronic medical record systems integrations, according to HealtheConnections.

Mirth will also be providing application and technical-gateway services for public health, Veteran Administration, results delivery, clinical document exchange, and secure-messaging capabilities, the organization added.

“We are delighted to be partners with HealtheConnections and to have enabled them to migrate from a legacy system to our state-of-the-art HIE infrastructure,” Jon Teichrow, president of Mirth, said in the news release.

Its previous HIE legacy system “limited” HealtheConnections in its abilities to deliver “timely and flexible” information and services at the pace needed for its participants, the organization said. The roadblocks in the communication, integration, and information exchange among existing-provider systems within HealtheConnections’ regional communities were “equally limiting,” it added.

HealtheConnections on Feb. 5 announced that it planned to switch software providers when the three-year contract for the previous software, Axolotl, expired in March. Axolotl is a product of Eden Prairie, Minn.–based OptumInsight.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com