IHIE News

Back to News Archives

PRESS RELEASE

Contact:
Jenny Siminski
Office: (317) 644-1724 Cell: (317) 213-5466
E-mail: jsiminski@ihie.org

Indiana Health Information Exchange program
receives national honor
eHealth Initiative recognizes Quality Health First (SM) program.

INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana (October 11, 2007) – The Indiana Health Information Exchange (IHIE) and the Employers' Forum of Indiana today announced its Quality Health First program received a national award from the eHealth Initiative (eHI), a non-profit organization in Washington, D.C. that drives improvements in the quality, safety and efficiency of healthcare through information and information technology.

The award was presented last evening at eHI's 2007 annual conference awards program. The Quality Health First program was selected as the award recipient for the Aligning Financial and Other Incentives category.

The awards are being held in conjunction with the eHealth Initiative's Fourth Annual Conference. Dr. J. Marc Overhage, President and CEO of the Indiana Health Information Exchange, is also a scheduled speaker at the conference. Dr. Gregory Larkin, Director, Corporate Health Services, Eli Lilly and Company and Dr. Randy Howard, Regional Vice President and Medical Director, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield accepted the award on behalf of the Quality Health First program.

The award selection criteria is based on the eHealth Initiative's mission and values as well as the principles, strategies and best practices identified by the eHealth Initiative Blueprint: Building Consensus for Common Action.

"The efforts of the Indiana Health Information Exchange serve as a model for the rest of the country," said Janet Marchibroda, chief executive officer of the eHealth Initiative. "They are truly pioneers and we're pleased to recognize the IHIE for their leadership, collaboration and willingness to share best practices with others to improve the quality, safety and efficiency of healthcare."

"We are delighted that the Quality Health First program is being recognized by a national organization like the eHealth Initiative," said Dr. Overhage. "eHI has their pulse on the most progressive communities across the U.S. that are improving health through healthcare information exchange. This award reinforces Indiana's position as one of those top-tier efforts."

The Quality Health First program architecture was developed under the auspices of the Employers' Forum of Indiana. The Forum, of which IHIE is a member, is a coalition of employers, health plans, physicians, hospitals, public officials and other stakeholders that share the goal of improving the value purchasers and patients receive for their health care dollar.

By combining electronic medical and drug claims data from participating health plans with patient prescription medication data, laboratory and test results from the Indiana Network for Patient Care database and the DOCS4DOCS® clinical messaging service, the Quality Health First program creates reports that physicians can use to better monitor and improve the health of their patients. The Indiana Network for Patient Care is operated by Regenstrief Institute and the DOCS4DOCS service was developed by Regenstrief and is operated in conjunction with IHIE.

Participating health insurers will also use these reports to provide meaningful incentives based primarily on the physician's high performance and significant improvement of the overall health of their patient population. These health insurers also have agreed to IHIE providing one standard report to physicians across all insurers versus multiple health insurer reports based on a set of common measures.

Specifically, the Quality Health First program provides alerts, reminders and follow-up treatment information to manage chronic diseases including diabetes, high cholesterol and certain types of cancer. The program also includes childhood immunizations and mental health screening and follow-up.

"The Quality Health First program begins to address the challenges of the local healthcare marketplace," said Dave Kelleher, Executive Director of the Employers' Forum of Indiana. "These kinds of unique, multi-stakeholder programs will become even more critical to contain costs while continuing to provide excellent health services to Hoosiers."

In addition to the award given to the Quality Health First program, Indiana's Public Health Emergency Surveillance System (PHESS) also received an award for the Improving Population Health category. PHESS is the statewide infrastructure used to analyze data from Indiana hospital emergency departments to protect the health of Indiana's residents from acts of bioterrorism, disease outbreaks and other public health emergencies. It is operated by the Indiana State Department of Health and the Regenstrief Institute.

For several decades, the needs of the American public have been shifting away from predominately acute, episodic care and toward focusing more on patients with chronic diseases. Chronic conditions are now the leading cause of illness, disability and death. They affect almost half of the U.S. population and account for the majority of health care expenditures. Moreover in 2004, according to Partnership for Solutions National Program Office, almost half of all Americans lived with a chronic condition.

However, there remains a dearth of clinical programs with the infrastructure required to provide the full complement of services needed by people with heart disease, diabetes, asthma, and other common chronic diseases. The Quality Health First program was launched to address these needs.

About the Indiana Health Information Exchange
Indiana Health Information Exchange, Inc. (IHIE) is a non-profit corporation formed by the Regenstrief Institute, private hospitals, local and state health departments, BioCrossroads, the state's life sciences initiative, and other prominent organizations in Indiana. IHIE is the nation's most respected health information exchange organizations and one of the nation's only health information exchange organizations providing chronic disease and preventive health services (www.qualityhealthfirst.org). It is dedicated to supporting communities by providing services that enable the right medical information to get to the right provider at the right time to enhance patient care. To learn more, visit www.ihie.org.



About the Employers' Forum of Indiana
The Employers' Forum Of Indiana is a group of large public and private employers, physicians, hospitals, public officials, insurers, health plans and other interested parties working together to address healthcare issues including quality and consistency of care, efficiency, employee involvement and community wide participation. For information on the Employers Forum of Indiana, visit the Forum Page of www.hoi.com

About the eHealth Initiative
The eHealth Initiative and its Foundation are independent, non-profit affiliated organizations whose missions are the same: to drive improvements in the quality, safety, and efficiency of healthcare through information and information technology.

eHI engages multiple stakeholders, including clinicians, consumer and patient groups, employers, health plans, healthcare IT suppliers, hospitals and other providers, laboratories, pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers, pharmacies, public health, and public sector agencies, as well as its growing coalition of more than 280 state, regional and community-based collaboratives focused on improving healthcare by mobilizing health information electronically, to develop and disseminate common principles, policies and best practices for improving the quality, safety and effectiveness of America's healthcare through information and information technology. Go to www.ehealthinitiative.org.

Back to News Archives