Health Information Exchange (HIE) is not always understood in our ever changing healthcare landscape.

 

Myth #1 busts a misconception about HIE advancement and consolidation.

 

Interoperability is delivered best in markets that are dominated by one large electronic health record (EHR) System.

 

 

 

While one or two EHR’s may dominate certain markets, in the age of value-based healthcare, patients seek care through a variety of healthcare organizations and locations creating data silos. HIEs can consume, digest and disseminate information from multiple sources and present that information to the hospital, provider and care team in a format they can understand. This means that HIEs provide a normalized, longitudinal clinical record for each patients, incorporating information from all care settings with multiple EHR systems.

 

Myth #2 busts a thought that all patients only see providers within one healthcare organization.

 

Patients in my area only see providers that are associated with our healthcare organization. This is because we provide emergency care, primary care and specialty care.

 

 

 

American patients have seen an average of 18.7 different doctors during their lives, according to a survey conducted by GfK OmniWeb Roper. For patients over 65 years of age, the average increases to 28.4 individual doctors, including primary care, specialists, hospital and urgent care providers.

 

 

 

Myth #3 In an HIE, just sharing data is sufficient. 

 

Many HIEs only share a longitudinal view of a patient data from multiple organizations across the care continuum.

 

 

 

An HIE can alert hospitals and physicians to a patient’s admission, readmission or discharge from an acute care facility, informing the provider’s workflow and helping him/her to better respond to care transitions. This allows a provider to offer timely follow-up care to ensure better care of the patient. Similarly, as value-based care drives requirements for analytics and quality reporting, HIEs can take in data, perform key analytics and deliver reports that help providers increase their quality scores.

Download a printable version here.

 

Little Rock, Arkansas – May, 2019

SHARE is happy to announce our new participant, White Hall Family Medicine Associates. White Hall Family Medicine Associates is the newest independent family medicine clinic to join the SHARE network! This independent provider practice is located in White Hall, Arkansas providing high quality, patient-centered health care. White Hall Family Medicine Associates was founded to provide convenient, complete and compassionate healthcare to their community.

The data exchange service will give the physicians, nurses and care team, in Jefferson County and surrounding areas, secure access to important information such as lab results, updated patient records, vitals, allergies, discharge summaries and demographic information. This ensures every care provider in a patient’s chain of care has consistent and current information, and that their records are more secure and accessible than with paper files.

“With the clinic accessing their patient’s data securing from the SHARE exchange, they will be able to see the bigger picture of their patient’s overall health outside of their clinic. This will include if their patients have been to the hospital or seen a specialist since their last visit, updated test results and progress notes will be right there in their records,” said Justin Villines, HIT Policy Integrator with SHARE. “Patients won’t have to worry about remembering every detail for a primary care visit because their doctors and care team will have a more complete picture of their patients’ health ,” said Villines.

About White Hall Family Medicine Associate:

Your Family … Our Team … Good Health

No matter what age or stage in life, White Hall Family Medicine Associates is committed to providing skilled, quality, comprehensive healthcare. While they continue to keep pace with the latest advancements in medicine, they never forget that each patient is a unique individual. As highly trained, dedicated and experienced physicians, they offer a comprehensive full-service family practice dedicated to providing excellent and compassionate healthcare to patients. As a partner in healthcare, they listen to patients concerns and can help them develop a wellness program that will assist in maintaining optimal health and wellness.

Services

Chronic Illness Management: Chronic illnesses include, but are not limited to, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, diabetes, arthritis and allergies. Such illnesses generally require a lifetime of treatment.

Acute Care: Acute care illnesses include such things as upper respiratory infections, bladder infections, back, neck and other musculoskeletal injuries – maladies that, while possibly severe, are generally brief when properly treated.

Wellness Care: physicians strongly recommend patients have a wellness physical once a year. An annual wellness examination provides physicians with the information necessary to ensure patients maintain a healthy lifestyle, and is also a key to early diagnosis and treatment of potentially serious diseases.

Annual Visits: Include Pap smears (Papanicolaou test), prostate exam, blood work, colon (Colorectal) cancer screening.

Immunizations: Maintaining the recommended immunization schedule is an important aspect of wellness for both adult and pediatric patients.

On-Site Lab & X-Ray:  This includes blood tests, urinalysis, serologies for mono and pregnancy tests. Physicians are able to order chest, bone and joint X-rays on-site and have the results within a reasonable amount of time. The availability of these capabilities in their clinic (and not at a third-party facility) allows them to provide patients with quicker diagnosis and treatment – often while they are being examined.

Find out more here: https://whitehallfamilymedicine.com/

 

• Providers will have an up-to-the-minute view of a patient’s health history at the point of care
• Accessing the Virtual Health Record puts the power of information and collaboration in the hands of the clinician—enabling more accurate diagnoses, faster and more effective treatment, and better outcomes for the patient

Little Rock, Arkansas – May, 2019  SHARE is happy to announce our new participant; Chenal Family Therapy has joined the only statewide health information exchange. Chenal Family Therapy is the newest group of behavioral health clinics to join the SHARE network! With locations in West Little Rock, Conway, North Little Rock, Bryant, White Hall, Rogers (NWA), Hot Springs, De Queen, Cabot, Heber Springs, El Dorado, Fort Smith, Texarkana and Jonesboro. Chenal Family Therapy is encouraging, empowering and equipping patients for a better state of health throughout Arkansas.

Chenal Family Therapy is providing high quality, patient-centered therapy, medication management and counseling. Access to SHARE will give the therapists, nurses and care team, that see patients in over 20 counties in Arkansas, secure access to important health information such as, updated patient records, discharge summaries, medication histories and demographic information. This ensures every care provider in a patient’s chain of care has consistent and current information, and that their health records are more secure and accessible than with paper files being faxed or mailed.

About Chenal Family Therapy:

Chenal Family Therapy is a team of passionate and caring therapists covering in Arkansas, with 15 locations and more to come. They were founded in 2010 by their Practice Director, Ken Clark, MA, LMFT. They do individual, couples and family therapy for kids, teens, and adults, as well as psychological testing services. They also offer psychiatric evaluations, medication management, and registered dietitian services. Healing Relationships through Individual, Couples & Family Therapy is their mission and vision.

Find out more here:

https://www.chenaltherapy.com/

 

Healthcare simply consists of thousands of interlinked processes that result in a very complex system. If we focus on the processes of care one at a time, we can fundamentally change the game and deal with the challenges facing healthcare. Meaningful quality improvement must be data-driven. This is particularly true for quality control in healthcare. You’re basically dead in the water if you try to work with healthcare providers and you don’t have good data. I think everybody recognizes that.

The right data in the right format, at the right time, in the right hands is crucial.  If clinician teams are going to manage care, they need data. They need the right data delivered in the right format, at the right time, and in the right place. And the data must be delivered into the right hands—the clinicians’ care team is involved in operating and improving any given process of care.

If quality improvement is going to work in healthcare—if we are going to realize value—it means, we must engage clinicians. Clinicians (nurses and providers’ care team) are the frontline workers who understand and own the processes of care. But we live in a pristine time. I once received from an email from a physician leader at a leading national delivery system. I’m going to withhold the name of the delivery system, but I can tell you that if you ask knowledgeable people to list of top 10 delivery systems in the country, almost everyone would put the same organization on their list. Despite that, this physician wrote to me lamenting how difficult it was for him to get his peer physicians to see a new future. And in his email, he succinctly described the problem by saying that his physicians were “historically encumbered and demoralized.” And I love the succinctness of his description because what he is basically saying is they’re clinging to the past and are demoralized because they don’t see a new future. And in that short phrase, this very excellent physician leader encapsulated the problem and points us towards the solution.

View the full Spring Newsletter here.

• Empower Health Care Solutions, a Provider-led Arkansas Shared Savings Entity (PASSE) expands connection with SHARE to include real-time ADTs (Admission, Discharge and Transfers)
• Utilizing SHARE in addressing the overall health care needs of Medicaid beneficiaries who have complex behavioral health or intellectual and developmental disability (IDD) service needs
• Use of the Virtual Health Record (VHR) and Secure Messaging (SM) to coordinate and integrate treatment delivery across all of the individual’s providers

Little Rock, Arkansas – April, 2019 The only statewide HIE in Arkansas, State Health Alliance for Records Exchange announce a ground-breaking partnership that will enable more efficient healthcare services for patients across rural Arkansas who have complex behavioral health or intellectual and developmental disability (IDD) service needs.

By enhancing the connection with Empower Health Care Solutions, a Provider-led Arkansas Shared Savings Entity (PASSE) to the statewide HIE network, which includes Admission, Discharge and Transfer (ADT) data exchange, this integration of ADTs will have faster and more complete access to their patients’ most critical health information. The enhanced information access will improve patients’ care coordination, reduce treatment delays and assist with the elimination of unnecessary admission to the emergency room.

Additionally, SHARE provides Empower Health Care Solutions with 24-hour daily reports when the members are admitted and discharged from the emergency department or have an inpatient discharge. This collaboration is a continued effort to improve patient outcomes of Medicaid beneficiaries throughout Arkansas. The care coordinators are also using the VHR that displays information as a traditional clinical chart, with tabs to separate patient information into groups for easy chart review. It retrieves and shows all available data for a selected patient gathered from all participants within SHARE to enable a single, consolidated view of a patient’s health history. By also using SM the care coordinators are also able to communicate with providers and healthcare teams taking care of patients who have complex behavioral health or intellectual and developmental disability (IDD) needs.

Empower Health Care Solutions can view the following patient data through the SHARE VHR:

• Admission, Discharge and Transfer reports
• Allergies, Problems, Medications
• Demographic and Insurance information
• Laboratory results
• Radiology reports, image links
• Discharge Summaries
• Continuity of Care Documents
• Progress Notes

As the healthcare landscape continues to transform, HIEs may play a key role in providing data that fuels innovation. SHARE and Empower Health Care Solutions are working together to contribute to these innovation efforts such as population health initiatives and identifying potential social determinants of health.

About Empower Healthcare Solutions:  Empower is run by six organizations working together. Empower Healthcare Solutions, LLC (Empower) is a Provider-led Arkansas Shared Savings Entity (PASSE). This new model of care was developed to address the overall health care needs of Medicaid beneficiaries who have complex behavioral health or intellectual and developmental disability (IDD) service needs. Goals of the PASSE program are to:

• Coordinate and integrate treatment delivery across all of the individual’s providers
• Improve total health outcomes for the target population
• Increase local services capacity to help individuals with IDD access quality care and support services within their own communities
• Ensure flexibility in the individuals’ service array to address all of their health care needs
• Slow or decrease spending growth and costly acute care stays by promoting efficient and effective services

Arkansas Community Health Network (ACHN). ACHN is composed of four health care systems: Baxter Regional Health System, North Arkansas Medical System, Unity Health, and White River Health System.

Beacon Health Options (Beacon). Beacon is the nation’s largest organization exclusively dedicated to assessing and addressing the clinical and social needs of individuals experiencing mental illness, addiction and developmental disabilities. In Arkansas, since 2010, Beacon has had contracts with the Department of Human Services to assist in administering the behavioral health care delivery system.

Independent Case Management (ICM). ICM is a statewide premier provider of home and community-based supports to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Statera. Statera is an entity comprised of leaders and innovators committed to serving the long-term support services needs of Arkansans, including those with behavioral health and developmental disability diagnoses. Together, the representatives of Statera have vast health care experience, spanning home health, hospice, skilled nursing facilities, assisted living facilities, independent care facilities, institutional pharmacies, retail pharmacies, medical clinics, rural health clinics, non-emergency transportation services; and full-service rehabilitation therapy businesses throughout Arkansas. 

The Arkansas Healthcare Alliance, LLC. The Alliance is comprised of approximately 22 well-established inpatient and outpatient providers, who strive to provide quality behavioral health, substance use disorder, and intellectual and developmental disability services. Together, the Alliance offers individualized treatment to tens of thousands of Arkansas infants, children, adolescents, adults, and families.

Woodruff Health Group, LLC (ARcare/pharmacist). ARcare operates as a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC). In addition, ARcare is the statewide provider of medical and case management services for the Ryan White HIV/AIDS program. Over the last 30 years, ARcare has created a health care home through a network of 36 primary care clinics, three pharmacies, and four wellness centers to serve underserved communities and provide access to quality health care.

To learn more visit: https://www.getempowerhealth.com

 

• Promoting Behavioral Health Data Exchange with Perspectives Behavioral Health Management
• Improving Comprehensive Patient Care
• Identifying High Risk Patients

Little Rock, Ark. March 2019 ­- Health information exchanges (HIEs) play a hand in enabling more practical, timely health data exchange to participating healthcare organizations and their patients.  While electronic health record (EHR) systems and health data exchange solutions have been common tools within hospitals and physician practices for close to a decade, many behavioral healthcare providers are just beginning to integrate EHR use into care delivery. This includes integration with HIEs for a more complete picture of health of the patient.

The only statewide HIE in Arkansas, State Health Alliance for Records Exchange (SHARE), has now integrated with Perspectives Behavioral Health Management, that use Credible, a behavioral health EHR, to improve comprehensive care throughout West Arkansas. This includes records such as diagnostic evaluation, diagnoses, discharge plan/summary, medications and continuity of care documents (CCDs).

With this integration, SHARE excludes sensitive labs, psychotherapy notes and substance abuse information adhering to 42 CFR Part 2. SHARE also, provides Perspectives Behavioral Health Management access to 24 hour daily reports notifying the behavioral health clinic providers and care coordinators when their patients are admitted and discharged from the emergency department and inpatient discharges.

Perspectives Behavioral Health Management’s main clinic is located in Fort Smith, Arkansas and provides care at Clarksville, Greenwood, Mulberry clinics and also sees patients at over 20 school based treatment programs throughout the Fort Smith region. Perspectives Behavioral Health Management services Day Treatment (adult), Traditional office-based counseling (child/adult), Psychological testing (child/adult), School-Based Services (child), and Crisis Intervention services.

These efforts to include behavioral health in the electronic data exchange mark progress toward enabling more comprehensive, complete patient care. Despite a growing awareness of the importance of behavioral health data to primary care providers and hospitals, behavioral health data sharing continues to lag behind.

With this integration of behavioral health data into SHARE it ultimately results in a more complete picture of a patient’s health and assists with information gaps. Integrating behavioral health and other data types into SHARE is imperative to mitigating these information gaps and avoiding potential inhibitors to positive patient health outcomes resulting in improving managed mental health.

About Perspectives Behavioral Health Management

The philosophy of Perspectives Behavioral Health Management, LLC is to provide top quality care to individuals and families served to help them achieve their treatment plan goals. Key principles of treatment include evidenced based practices to accurately assess and intervene for remediation and/or management of mental health symptoms across all populations served.  Integration of cultural sensitivity and family involvement are part of treatment to enhance success. Each patient has individual needs and goals which are the priority of treatment.  PBHM will assess and treat in a compassionate manner. Services are designed to help patients' transition into a less restrictive environment as they complete their goals.

Perspectives Behavioral Health Management, LLC, has earned a reputation for providing quality mental health services in a timely and efficient manner. We have a multidisciplinary team approach to treatment which utilizes the skills of the psychiatrists, therapists, paraprofessionals, and nurses working together under the physician’s supervision, in order to facilitate a comprehensive and constructive plan of care for the patients that we treat.  The treatment team works in collaboration with the consumer to develop the most appropriate plan of care given the presenting problem, needs/desires of the consumer, and resources available to that Individual We Serve

Our Mission is to provide quality outpatient mental health services based on sound business practices. Central to our Mission is our desire to be the premier provider of quality outpatient mental health services in the State of Arkansas by providing a multitude of innovative services based on need and available resources while assisting both the family and community in the promotion of healing and change.

We will:

• Provide excellence through our use of progressive and proactive services
• Attract highly qualified personnel
• Develop community partnerships
• Value professionalism, teamwork, integrity, and responsibility
• Continually assess program delivery

Services provided include:  Day Treatment (adult), Traditional office-based counseling (child/adult), Psychological testing (child/adult), School-Based Services (child), and Crisis Intervention services.

For more information, visit: https://www.pbhm.com

 

 

Little Rock, Arkansas– MANA, Medical Associates of Northwest Arkansas, one of the largest medical groups of local independent physicians in Northwest Arkansas, has connected with the State Health Alliance for Records Exchange (SHARE) the only Statewide Health Information Exchange (HIE) that facilitates the secure exchange of patient health information among hospitals, physicians, clinicians and other members of the medical community. MANA is physician owned and patient centered with one purpose to improve quality of life by providing compassionate, comprehensive, quality healthcare.

“MANA is committed to delivering high-quality care in a professional and caring environment to improve the health and well-being of the patients in North and Northwest Arkansas,” said Anne Santifer, SHARE Executive Director. By connecting with SHARE, they will further their commitment by exchanging information more efficiently with referring physicians and providing referral doctors and hospitals with the patient information they need at the point of care.

MANA is now live with sharing data through an interface with eClinicalWorks (eCW) and the only Statewide HIE in Arkansas (SHARE), which features a robust patient query and response functionality that lets providers quickly access patient health data from hospitals, physician practices, state health systems and more. This includes records such as medical history, previous diagnoses, lab tests, medications, continuity of care documents (CCDs), immunizations, vitals and allergies. Additionally, SHARE provides access to 24 hour daily reports notifying the primary care clinic providers and care coordinators when their Arkansas Medicaid patients are admitted and discharged from the emergency department and inpatient discharges.

Whatever a patients’ healthcare needs, MANA provides compassionate, expert care to families through their network of specialists that expand from Fayetteville to Harrison Arkansas. “We are pleased to welcome Medical Associates of Northwest Arkansas, one of the nation’s leading medical groups of local independent physicians, to SHARE,” said Justin Villines, HIT Policy Integrator of SHARE. “This connection helps facilitate the seamless and secure exchange of patient health information with Arkansas’ health systems, hospitals and physicians. This delivers substantial benefits for patients, referring physicians and all of the MANA practices.”

MANA includes a wide range of clinics and specialties:

 

Clinics Include:	Specialties Include:
Multi-Specialty: Fayetteville Diagnostic Clinic	Adult Medicine
FirstCare Family Doctors (7 locations)	Asthma Clinic
MANA Urgent Care (2 locations)	Imaging & MRI
Millennium Chiropractic Sports Medicine and Rehab	Mammography/Breast Imaging
Fayetteville Acute Care & Walk-In Clinic (Pediatrics)	Chiropractic
Pinnacle Hills Wellness Clinic and Acute Care & Walk-In Clinic (Pediatrics)	Family Medicine
Renaissance Women's Healthcare	Gastroenterology
The Breast Center- Fayetteville	Gynecology
MANA Family Medicine	Neurology
Fayetteville Wellness Clinic (Pediatrics)	Pediatrics
The Breast Center- Bentonville	Psychiatry
The Breast Center- Harrison	Pulmonary Medicine
MANA MRI	Rheumatology
MANA Imaging	Sleep Medicine
MANA Northwest Arkansas Psychiatry	Urgent Care

Established in 2013, SHARE has successfully connected members consisting of hospital systems, physician groups, public health registries, individual practitioners, state and regional HIEs. SHARE is connected to the national eHealth Exchange and is also a member of DirectTrust, which enables its members to securely exchange information nationally with other providers who are using DirectTrust. SHARE participates with the Strategic Health Information Exchange Collaborative (SHIEC). Health information exchanges (HIEs) are connecting nation­wide to seamlessly deliver patient health information across state lines and across health systems, improving the patient experience by making health information available when­ever and wherever care occurs.

About MANA Physicians and Clinics

Medical Associates of Northwest Arkansas (MANA) is an independent physician group that includes family medicine, pediatrics, women’s health and an array of specialists and advanced health services. Our mission is to improve quality of life by providing compassionate, comprehensive, quality healthcare.

An Independent Physician Group

MANA physicians and clinics have a reputation for excellence as leaders in the healthcare community for over 50 years.

• Fayetteville Diagnostic Clinic was established in 1957 to provide internal medicine and specialty care for adults.
• In 1983, Drs. Joe T. Robinson and Terry Payton opened Northwest Arkansas Pediatric Clinic, now Northwest Arkansas Pediatrics. Since then the pediatric practice has continued to attract top graduates from the University of Arkansas School of Medicine and Arkansas Children’s Hospital as well as other top programs.
• In 1994, a group of family medicine doctors established FirstCare Family Doctors, that now has 7 locations serving the Northwest Arkansas community with quality family care.
• In 1999, Fayetteville Diagnostic Clinic physicians partnered with Northwest Arkansas Pediatrics and FirstCare Family Doctors to create a unique medical group, Medical Associates of Northwest Arkansas (MANA).
• In 2000, we added MediServe Walk-In Clinic to serve residents, students, and visitors seven days a week. These clinics are now called MANA Urgent Care.
• In 2003, Drs. Danna Grear and Kevin Pope established the first independent facility in Arkansas dedicated solely to breast imaging, The Breast Center. The Breast Center was the first in the area to offer digital mammography and first in the state to offer Breast MRI with Dr. Steven Harms, a world-renowned radiologist.
• Dr. Kathleen Paulson approached MANA in 2005 to open a gynecology practice, Renaissance Women’s Healthcare, dedicated to educating women about their health from their first appointment through menopause.
• In 2009, MANA physicians acquired the first 3T MRI in Northwest Arkansas to provide patients and physicians with faster scans and better images.
• In 2012, added Automated Whole Breast Ultrasound for women with dense breast tissue at The Breast Center. 
• MANA Imaging began providing lung cancer screening and was named an Accredited Lung Cancer Screening Center in 2017. 
• Expanded family medicine and pediatrics to Benton County in 2018.
• Our top priority is to provide the best care to our patients for optimum health. We believe in listening and sharing with our patients. Our Mission is to improve quality of life by providing compassionate, comprehensive, quality healthcare.

Physician Owned

MANA clinics are independent, physician-owned practices. As a physician-owned practice, our physicians can focus on compassionate, quality, patient care, and retain the quality, personal clinic environment. Physicians make the decisions that shape excellent patient care in our practices.

By working together, MANA physicians can responsibly manage the costs associated with health care, improve our practice efficiencies, and enhance overall care for patients. A board of directors elected by the physicians governs MANA. The board is advised and assisted by four principal leaders: Jason Wilson, Chief Executive Officer; Paula Maxwell, Chief Operating Officer; John Jordin, Chief Informational Officer; and Paula Storment, Chief Financial Officer.

Innovative Care

MANA clinics are at the forefront of innovative health care. Our physicians provide an array of advanced diagnostic testing and preventive screening including laboratory services, breast cancer screening, general imaging, advanced pulmonary testing, colon cancer screening and endoscopy. View advanced health services.

 

• CHI St. Vincent Infirmary, CHI St. Vincent North, CHI St. Vincent Hot Springs and CHI St. Vincent Morrilton hospitals expand connection with SHARE to include Continuity of Care Documents (CCDs)
• 30+ CHI St. Vincent Heart Clinics Arkansas are integrating to share patient data with referral partners to include Continuity of Care Documents (CCDs)
• 80+ Primary Care and Specialty Care clinics expand connections to seamlessly deliver patient health information (Laboratory Results, Radiology Reports and Discharge Summaries) across the state

 

Little Rock, Arkansas – February, 2019 The only statewide HIE in Arkansas, State Health Alliance for Records Exchange (SHARE), announce a ground-breaking partnership that will enable more efficient healthcare services for patients across rural Arkansas. This expands connections to CHI St. Vincent by exchanging important information such as lab results, updated patient records and demographic information. By integrating with the only Statewide Health Information Exchange (HIE) it ensures every care provider in a patient’s chain of care has consistent and current information, and that their records are more secure and accessible.

By enhancing the connection with CHI St. Vincent hospitals and clinics to the statewide HIE network, which will include bi-directional data exchange, health care providers participating in the clinically integrated network and referral partnerships will have faster and more complete access to their patients’ most critical health information. The enhanced information access will improve patients’ care coordination, reduce treatment delays, eliminate unnecessary testing and allow care providers to make more targeted diagnoses and treatment recommendations.

Additionally, SHARE provides CHI St. Vincent with data to enable enhanced 30-day readmission event notifications, as well as 24-hour daily reports when their primary care practices’ Medicaid patients are admitted and discharged from the emergency department or have an inpatient discharge. This collaboration is to improve population health analysis, patient outcomes and success with health care quality initiatives such as accountable care, meaningful use, clinically integrated networks, MIPS/MACRA and medical home programs.

"We enthusiastically support CHI St. Vincent’s vision of higher quality, better coordinated care for individuals living in rural Arkansas," said Anne Santifer, Executive Director at SHARE. “CHI St. Vincent is among the most ambitious health care systems in the state — they are implementing state-of-the-art technology that will significantly improve collaboration among providers in their area. Ultimately, this will improve patient outcomes and potentially reduce overall health care costs for everyone” said Justin Villines, HIT Policy Integrator at SHARE.

As the healthcare landscape continues to transform, HIEs may play a key role in providing data that fuels innovation. SHARE and CHI St. Vincent are working together to contribute to these innovation efforts such as population health initiatives and identifying potential social determinants of health. “This collaboration with SHARE will enable CHI St. Vincent to move forward with our mission ensuring a healthy future for those we serve, while excelling our system performance while we advance personal and community health beyond our traditional acute care focus.” “Sharing information among health care providers is fundamental to providing the highest quality of care for our citizens.” said Christi Whatley, Vice President & Chief Quality Officer, CHI St. Vincent.

CHI St. Vincent continues to remain committed to delivering the highest quality of care for patients and the communities it serves while simultaneously driving efficiencies to address the challenges facing healthcare providers and ensuring a sustainable future for its healing ministry in Arkansas.

About CHI St. Vincent:

CHI St. Vincent, a regional health network serving Arkansas, is part of Catholic Health Initiatives. We have served Arkansas since 1888 with a history of many firsts. Headquartered in Little Rock, our networks include primary care, specialty clinics, urgent care, hospitals, home health, rehabilitation and surgery centers. Together with more than 4,500 coworkers, 1,000 medical staff, and 500 volunteers, we consistently receive praise for advancements in care. Our growing Medical Group includes more than 300 providers across almost every medical and surgical specialty.  For more information, visit:  https://www.chistvincent.com

 

Despite widespread support for organ donation, a severe shortage in the number of organs donated exists. More than 118,000 Americans are on a waiting list for a kidney, heart, liver or other vital organ, and another person is added to that list every 16 minutes. Statistics reveal an average of 18 individuals will die each day while waiting for an available organ. Estimates indicate that more than 25,000 Americans die each year under circumstances that would allow them to become organ donors, but an average of only about 5,000 a year actually donate.

However, knowing this shortage, ARORA uses SHARE (Arkansas’ Statewide Health Information Exchange) to access patient’s information in real time from hospitals and clinics across the State of Arkansas. This allows real-time decisions on if a patient is eligible for organ donation based on their diagnosis, laboratory results, progress notes as well as many other factors. Before having access to SHARE, Paul Coulter, Donation Development Liaison stated “ARORA staff had to drive to hospitals and review the patient’s medical chart before we could deem the patient a candidate for organ donation. This would take many hours,” he said.

During this summer Paul stated “SHARE simply helped restore the life of someone on the waiting list by allowing our providers to have real-time access to a medical history to determine if donation was possible.  We had a family who mentioned their loved one had a cancer diagnosis, but didn’t know all the details.  We researched the patient’s medical records and didn’t find the cancer diagnosis. We then checked SHARE where we found the complete story regarding the cancer, which resulted in the patient becoming a tissue donor. Because of SHARE’s ability to display multiple hospitals’ visits, we were easily able to find the information needed. Without SHARE, this patient would not have been able to enhance the lives of others due to the lack of information.  Donation provides hope and healing for donor families as they know their loved ones helped others in a time of great need.

Paul stated that “Research indicates the primary reason for not donating is lack of education about the subject. A single, multi-organ donor can provide as many as seven organs—heart, liver, two kidneys, two lungs pancreas, and intestine for transplantation—as well as tissue, including corneas, heart valves, skin and bone. Less than one per cent of all deaths are potential organ donors, which also greatly limits the number of organs available for transplant.”

As part of the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), ARORA is certified by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). There are three organ transplant centers in Arkansas: Arkansas Children's Hospital, Baptist Health Medical Center and UAMS, all located in Little Rock. Arkansas Children’s Hospital performs heart and kidney transplants; Baptist Medical Center performs heart transplants; and UAMS performs kidney and liver transplants. Surgical centers throughout the state perform tissue transplants, including bone, skin, and cornea grafts.

Since 1988, more than 336,000 kidney transplants have been performed annually across the United States with a success rate of 95 percent. In 2012 there were more than 28,000 organ transplants and more than 450,000 tissue transplants. Each transplant procedure, over the past several years, has shown an increase in not only the number of cases performed each year, but in the success rate as well.

Simply put, having access to SHARE has saved our agency time and resources while making every effort to provide organs and tissues for life-saving and life-enhancing transplantations.

About Arkansas Regional Organ Recovery Agency (ARORA)

The Arkansas Regional Organ Recovery Agency (ARORA) was established in 1987 as a non-profit, independent organ procurement agency. ARORA is headquartered in Little Rock, with a satellite office in northwest Arkansas located in Fayetteville. Serving 64 counties in the state, ARORA is managed by an executive director who reports to a board of directors. ARORA is also served by an Advisory Council, consisting of transplant surgeons, related physicians, donor family members, transplant recipients, hospital administrators and public representatives.