Part-I of this article can be found here.

Connecting 280 Data Points

WellTrackONE gathers and analyzes 280 patient data points, identifying potential catastrophic and chronic medical conditions. Once the assessment is complete, those conditions are outlined for review by a medical provider, flagging potential for current risks and chronic conditions in multiple categories such as functional capacity, safety, cognitive, mental, vision and other areas.

Current and potential catastrophic and chronic conditions that meet CMS’ AWV guidelines are outlined by category, subcategory and severity and include suggestions for clinical testing and referrals to specialists. The clinical triggers provide medically necessary information for follow up visits, lab and other testing as well as referrals of the patient to specialists to ensure the patient is obtaining the best possible care to minimize the risk of hugely expensive catastrophic events.

Addressing All Challenges Associated With the Lack of Interoperability

To begin addressing the integration of these data laden reports and overcoming their previous interoperability, Zoeticx’s Patient-Clarity server used its powerful data switch to “push” WellTrackONES’s reports into both of the hospital’s Allscripts EHRs and the IHIE system. This was done using Zoeticx’s middleware driven Application Program Interface (API) to translate the data. The integration also enables the hospital to enhance its MU2 and MU3 compliance.

The middleware design approach addresses multiple challenges relating to the lack of EHR interoperability. First, WellTrackONE’s solution becomes agnostic to any deployed EHR infrastructure, opening up to more opportunities to address care provider needs for AWV. Second, healthcare Information Technology (healthcare IT) addresses the challenges of integration where patient medical information flow is now integrated between EHRs and IHIE. The reports are available to all IHIE patients and participating facilities to provide a much higher level of continuity of care for the patient.

Fast implementation was also required from Zoeticx as the hospital was preparing to place an additional Allscripts EHR online. It needed interoperability for the hospital’s two Allscripts EHR systems, one for the clinical side and one for the rest of the hospital, but also its connected facilities.

In addition to speed and seamless integration, the hospital required customization for its billing capability. It had to be able to invoice the AWV under specific physicians while reports from patient assessments were custom routed to the attending physicians via Zoeticx’s platform.

Additional customization was also needed to ensure that the hospital’s laboratories and on-site specialists were included in the referral process by integrating the labs and specialists to the referral links within WellTrackONE. This would enable ease of use and ensuring that the referrals were going to the right lab, testing facility or specialist without manual intervention.

“The whole integration took no time and we were up and running with a newly integrated system. Our expectations were perfectly met and we now have more efficient providers who can better treat patients, their primary goal,” said French. “We also had no out-of-pocket costs and were able to generate substantial revenue for the hospital and its providers and achieve healthcare IT integration between EHR and IHIE at the same time.”

Good Samaritan Proactively Looking Ahead

The next step for Good Samaritan is to add its seamless Chronic Care Management program to the equation. It will provide the hospital with a complete, end-to-end seamless solution that will give providers the latest up-to-date information to manage their patient’s chronic and catastrophic illnesses and provide patients with the best care possible. The challenge would be on supporting the chronic care documents available to care providers within and outside the healthcare network.

Looking toward the future, GHS is also aware of the trend in which hospitals in particular have been purchasing physician and specialty clinics. Physician offices and specialty clinics often have their own EHR systems and they are never upgraded under a single EHR vendor, resulting in disparity of EHRs. Similar interoperability problems occur when a hospital system purchases another hospital system or individual hospital, but the complexities are even more pronounced. Different areas of the hospital or clinics within the hospital usually operate a clinic version of the EHR system used by the hospital.

“Whether we need to integrate additional EHRs for our healthcare IT system or through acquisition, with Zoeticx’s interoperability, we are well positioned for any possible future expansion,” French stated.