STHL joins statewide collaborative

BINGHAMTON — Southern Tier HealthLink (STHL) announced a new partnership with New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeC) and its Statewide Health Information Network of New York (SHIN-NY) Service Platform, which aims to create the infrastructure to connect health information across the state.

STHL, which covers Broome, Chenango, Tioga, Delaware, and Otsego counties, brings an extensive network of providers from its health-information exchange to SHIN-NY, with a functioning patient portal serving 25,000 patients.

“Our reasons for joining the SHIN-NY are simple,” STHL Executive Director Christina Galanis said in a release. “We can consolidate costs and make better use of our grant dollars; we can collaborate more fully to build on strong ideas and execution; and, most importantly, this partnership allows us to reach more providers. In short, we can offer more at a lower cost to our community.”

“STHL is particularly advanced in patient engagement, such as its pioneering use of social media and its patient portal,” NYeC Executive Director David Whitlinger said. “We are looking to build on those successes and take similar programs statewide.”

The STHL agreement brings the number of SHIN-NY partnerships to six. Other partners include the Brooklyn Health Information Exchange, the eHealth Network of Long Island, Healthix, Interboro RHIO, and Taconic Health Information Network and Community.

NYeC (www.nyehealth.org) is a not-for-profit organization working to improve health care through health information technology.

SHIN-NY, coordinated by NYeC, works to make electronic health records secure and accessible to health-care providers statewide while improving patient care and lowering costs.

STHL (www.sthlny.com), established in 2005, is a nonprofit regional health information organization that brings together providers and consumers with technology that improves quality, access, and safety while reducing costs.

Contact DeLore at tdelore@tgbbj.com