CHITREC is dedicated to making sure that every organization has useful options for completing one of the core aims of Meaningful Use: Health information exchange, or HIE.
The old method of exchanging patient records with other health care providers has been to fax or snail mail over these records, or rely on patients to move their own records. Or, worse, no exchange of information at all. Some electronic health record systems now give physicians the ability to securely exchange patient health data for purposes such as care coordination, transfer of care and referrals for sub-specialist services. Other systems don’t have this capability this is why the federal government has dedicated resources to help each state advance mechanisms for sharing information across different health care systems.
CHITREC helps each doctor assess options for doing HIE. We provide education and training for the state of Illinois’ HIE solution, ILHIE Direct Secure Messaging Solution. ILHIE Direct supports all federal and state policies and standards for HIE, including privacy & security standards such as HIPAA and state law. We also make sure that the practice is knowledgeable about how to exchange information securely, such as how to create and send HL7 documents to send without leaving files on computer desktops. Finally, we help doctors meet the Meaningful Use measure that requires one text exchange of information with another provider outside of your organization’s health care system.
As HIE continues to grow over the next few years, the options will also grow for providers. We will continuously update our education materials to reflect the latest options for secure messaging.