Andor Health Customers are Already Prepared for Full Compliance With Key Provisions in Federal Interoperability and Health Data Exchange Rules

ORLANDO, Fla., March 12, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Thanks to Andor Health's ThinkAndor™ mobile collaboration platform, two major Florida health systems are prepared to comply with new Conditions of Participation (CoP) provisions within the interoperability rules issued Monday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), thereby protecting their Medicare eligibility.

Issued Monday by HHS' Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), among other requirements, the new regulations require hospitals to send electronic patient event notifications of patients' admissions, discharges, and any transfers (ADT) to other healthcare facilities and to other community providers. To maintain Medicare eligibility, the CMS rule states that providers are required to comply with the new rules by September 9, 2020. State and federal Medicare and Medicaid programs are the nation's largest healthcare payers.

"These historic regulations are driving health system leaders to rethink their overall interoperability strategy, resulting in a greater focus on directly managing valuable last-mile connections to community physician and post-acute care facility electronic medical record (EMR) systems," said Aneesh Chopra, former Chief Technology Officer of the United States during the Obama Administration. "While some organizations will continue to trust partners, such as state health information exchanges (HIEs), to manage the delivery of event notifications, I'm hopeful more providers will turn to new enabling technologies like Andor Health's ThinkAndor platform to both ensure guaranteed compliance and enable broader clinical engagement to drive more coordinated care."

Florida health systems among a tiny minority of nation's providers ready to comply
"Florida health systems like Orlando Health and Lakeland Regional Healthcare are well ahead of the game in complying with the HHS interoperability rules," said Andor Health President Marlin Hutchens. "These forward-thinking healthcare organizations have already moved aggressively to comply with similar state regulations in Florida – known as House Bill 843 – by implementing the ThinkAndor platform."

"Florida HB-843 and the new CMS/ONC Interoperability rules for electronic patient event notifications  are pushing us to think differently about how we engage with our clinician community," said Novlet Mattis, Orlando Health Chief Information Officer. "Our partnership with Andor not only guarantees compliance, but it also enables last-mile connectivity to community clinicians. The Andor platform will be an essential component of our strategy beyond our HIE and clinical communication systems to comply with these state and federal regulations."

Orlando Health and Lakeland Regional Healthcare are among a small minority of the nation's providers prepared to comply with the new rules. A recent Accenture survey found that only 5% of healthcare CIOs believe their provider organizations are very prepared for the new rules.

"The healthcare industry's lack of readiness is understandable," Hutchens added. "Current methods fall short of meeting the intent and letter of the regulations. Only providers that pay to participate in HIEs would receive patient event notifications. Currently, HIEs are unable to gather discharge and transfer data. And finally, these approaches don't close the loop with patients."  

Care team coordination critical in the midst of today's global coronavirus crisis
Care team coordination, especially with community providers across disparate EMR systems, is a clear gap in the industry today. "Doctors are forced to provide care with an incomplete clinical picture, especially at a time when the healthcare system could be under stress with the handling of the COVID virus, the urgent need for coordinated care could not be clearer," CMS Administrator Seema Verma said Monday.

With ThinkAndor, clinician users can collaborate within secure channels that offer streamlined views of critical information relevant to patient care. Clinicians can also use AI-based voice commands, such as "ThinkAndor, send me my discharged patient list," to quickly access content. AI-enabled voice commands can also be used to configure workflows and curate relevant notifications and required actions.

About Andor Health
At Andor Health, our mission is to change the way care teams connect and collaborate. By harnessing machine and human intelligence, our cloud-based platform unlocks data stored in electronic medical records to deliver real-time actionable intelligence to care teams – both inside and outside of their enterprise. By optimizing communication workflows, our solutions accelerate time to treatment, decrease clinician burnout, and drive better patient outcomes. For more information, visit Andor Health or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

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