UHIN Receives $2.5 Million Grant to Bridge Care Coordination Gaps

 

Utah continues to be a national leader in the development of Health IT solutions that improve the timeliness, quality, and outcomes of care. The Utah Health Information Network (UHIN) is in the vanguard of health data exchange between diverse healthcare professionals, bringing providers real-time, actionable clinical information.  UHIN has launched a wide-reaching new project aimed at resolving interoperability issues that have plagued American healthcare. A collaborative effort by many Utah healthcare organizations, the project will help connect diverse groups of providers to Utah's Clinical Health Information Exchange (cHIE), managed by UHIN. Provider groups that will be connecting include rural hospitals and clinicians, the Utah Poison Control Center, emergency medical services personnel, providers serving children and youth with special healthcare needs, and skilled nursing facilities. They render critical treatment, but their records have only been available to other providers on a limited basis. UHIN’s project, Interoperability for Healthier Communities, will leverage the power of health information exchange to improve care coordination, transitions of care, and patient outcomes by enabling these important providers to contribute to longitudinal patient records through the cHIE. The project is supported by a $2.5 million award to UHIN that is part of $29.6 million in grant funds to expand the adoption and performance of health information exchange technology in a dozen states. UHIN’s partners in the project include well-known leaders in healthcare: Intermountain Healthcare; the University of Utah School of Medicine Departments of Pediatrics and Biomedical Informatics, as well as the Colleges of Nursing and Pharmacy; HealthInsight Utah; the Utah Bureau of Emergency Medical Services and the Division of Disease Control and Prevention within the Department of Health; and the Utah Poison Control Center.

The UHIMSS Board of Directors and its membership congratulate UHIN and its partners for being a part of technology development that will most certainly lead national, state, and local clinical data sharing protocols and technologies. The growth of Utah's reputation as a national leader and the new professional opportunities this could provide our members is why UHIMSS is proud of the advancements made in our member organizations. We will keep you up-to-date on the progress and results of this important study.