Care Connectivity Consortium and Healtheway Announce Collaboration to Advance National Patient Data Sharing

WASHINGTON, Feb. 21, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- The Care Connectivity Consortium and Healtheway announced today a new collaboration that will combine the Care Connectivity Consortium's advanced patient-centered care technology and commitment to health IT innovation with Healtheway's robust network services and the eHealth Exchange.

With their combined care-delivery expertise and health IT knowledge, the Care Connectivity Consortium and Healtheway will enable more than 40 health provider organizations across the nation to deliver better care to millions of patients.

"Access to complete, integrated health information improves care through better informed decisions," said Jamie Ferguson, vice president, Health IT Strategy and Policy at Kaiser Permanente (Calif.), one of the Care Connectivity Consortium's five founding organizations. The other organizations are: Geisinger Health System (Pa.), Group Health Cooperative (Wash.), Intermountain Healthcare (Utah) and Mayo Clinic (Minn.).

Healtheway, the non-profit, public-private partnership that operationally supports the eHealth Exchange, has a rapidly growing community of public and private organizations routinely sharing information in production.

This natural collaboration will expand the reach and possibilities of the organizations' shared goal to support and improve the health and health care of all Americans through secure, patient-centered data exchange.

"We're at a pivotal moment in the progression of health information exchange," said Mariann Yeager, Healtheway's interim executive director. "We believe this partnership is the push we need to make interoperability work on a national scale."

To support this and future partnerships, the Care Connectivity Consortium will continue to develop information-sharing services that will be available to all eHealth Exchange participants.

"The power of this partnership is in both of our organizations' commitment to efficient, effective and innovative interoperability that ultimately improves the health of the nation," Yeager said. "The advanced health information exchange services that the Care Connectivity Consortium can offer to our established eHealth Exchange participant network are invaluable."

Through this new collaboration, eHealth Exchange participants will have secure access to the Care Connectivity Consortium's advanced services that address the complexities of patient matching, consent management and, eventually, population care.

"Our goal is to create a model for innovation within the guardrails of nationwide exchange standards so that any organization can benefit from them," Ferguson said.

The Care Connectivity Consortium and Healtheway plan to demonstrate their collaboration at the Health Information and Management Systems Society's annual conference in New Orleans, March 3-7, at booth 561. HIMSS is the largest and most prestigious health IT industry organization in the world, attracting more than 38,000 attendees annually to its conference and exhibition. To learn more about HIMSS13 go to himssconference.org.

About Healtheway
Healtheway is a non-profit organization chartered to operationally support the eHealth Exchange, a rapidly growing community of exchange partners, who share information under a common trust framework and a common set of rules. Currently, 38 participants include four federal agencies, six states, eight beacon communities and more than a dozen Health Information Organizations (HIOs) and health systems, which represent hundreds of hospitals, thousands of providers and millions of patients. Healtheway leads in cross-industry collaboration to develop implementation strategies that enable secure, interoperable nationwide exchange of health information. For more information about Healtheway and the eHealth Exchange: www.healthewayinc.org.

About the Care Connectivity Consortium
The Care Connectivity Consortium is an interoperability collaboration working to improve and advance the technology available for comprehensive, secure, reliable and innovative electronic health information exchange across the country. Founded by five pioneers in the use of electronic medical records for their patients — Geisinger Health System, Kaiser Permanente, Mayo Clinic, Intermountain Healthcare and Group Health Cooperative — the Care Connectivity Consortium has a clear vision that the same benefits of the full medical information that exists in each of the organizations' EHR systems should be extended to all patients by connecting all communities and the nation in order to improve health care for all Americans. The Care Connectivity Consortium is committed to building toward a future where timely access to health information results in patient-centered, community-wide, evidence-based care. For more information about the Care Connectivity Consortium: www.careconnectivity.org. 

About Geisinger Health System
Geisinger Health System (www.geisinger.org) is an integrated health services organization widely recognized for its innovative use of the electronic health record, and the development of innovative care models such as ProvenHealth Navigator® and ProvenCare®. As the nation's largest rural health services organization, Geisinger serves more than 2.6 million residents throughout 44 counties in central and northeastern Pennsylvania, and it has a long-standing commitment to medical education, research and community service. The health system and the health plan have repeatedly garnered national accolades for integration, quality and service. For more information, visit www.geisinger.org.

About Group Health Cooperative
Group Health Cooperative is an innovative, consumer-governed, nonprofit health care system that integrates care and coverage. Along with its subsidiary carriers, Group Health Options, Inc. and KPS Health Plans, Group Health works to improve the health of more than 675,000 plan members in Washington and Idaho. More than 9,000 staff employed by Group Health and Group Health Physicians, its contracted, multispecialty group practice, provide patient-centered, evidence-based care to members and the broader community through medical centers, a charitable foundation, and a nationally recognized research center. For more information, please visit the virtual newsroom on our Web site, www.ghc.org under "Newsroom."

About Intermountain Healthcare
Intermountain Healthcare is a Utah-based system of 22 nonprofit hospitals, more than 185 clinics, a Medical Group with some 900 employed physicians, a health plans division called SelectHealth, and other health services. Intermountain is widely recognized as a leader in clinical quality improvement and in efficient health care delivery. For more information about Intermountain, please visit our website and online annual report at www.intermountainhealthcare.org.

About Mayo Clinic
Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit worldwide leader in medical care, research and education for people from all walks of life. For more information, visit MayoClinic.com or MayoClinic.org/news. Journalists can become a member of the Mayo Clinic News Network for the latest health, science and research news and access to video, audio, text and graphic elements that can be downloaded or embedded.

About Kaiser Permanente
Kaiser Permanente is committed to helping shape the future of health care. We are recognized as one of America's leading health care providers and not-for-profit health plans. Founded in 1945, our mission is to provide high-quality, affordable health care services and to improve the health of our members and the communities we serve. We currently serve more than 9 million members in nine states and the District of Columbia. Care for members and patients is focused on their total health and guided by their personal physicians, specialists and team of caregivers. Our expert and caring medical teams are empowered and supported by industry-leading technology advances and tools for health promotion, disease prevention, state-of-the-art care delivery and world-class chronic disease management. Kaiser Permanente is dedicated to care innovations, clinical research, health education and the support of community health. For more information, go to: kp.org/newscenter.

Contact:
Amanda Wardell- [email protected] 510.625.3954

SOURCE Care Connectivity Consortium