Care Connectivity Consortium Announces OCHIN Membership at HIMSS14

ORLANDO, Fla., Feb. 24, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- The Care Connectivity Consortium, a health information exchange collaborative founded by five leading health care organizations, announced today the addition of its new member, OCHIN, Inc., one of the nation's largest multistate health information networks.

The CCC will inaugurate OCHIN's membership at booth 8165 at the Health Information Management Systems Society Annual Conference and Exhibition, in Orlando, Fla., Feb. 24 – 26.

Founded by Geisinger Health System, Group Health Cooperative, Intermountain Healthcare, Kaiser Permanente and Mayo Clinic in April 2011, the CCC is committed to making health information exchange technologies more versatile and valuable for patients, caregivers and health care organizations.

"OCHIN's values are in alignment with the CCC's mission to promote and develop innovative, efficient, effective and accessible HIE capabilities to support care providers and patients with easy, fast access to medical records at the point of care," said Stan Huff, MD, chief medical informatics officer, Intermountain Healthcare. "This collaboration strengthens our resources and expands our capability for health information exchange."

"At OCHIN we strongly believe that joining with the CCC better equips us all to push existing boundaries and achieve better health outcomes by getting patient health data to the right place at the right time," said Abby Sears, president and CEO, OCHIN. "We are looking forward to making this happen nationally by working in partnership with each member of the consortium. "

The announcement comes just over one year from the start of a collaboration between the CCC and Healtheway, a non-profit organization chartered to advance the implementation of secure, interoperable nationwide health information exchange and to support the eHealth Exchange—a diverse community of exchange partners who share information under a common trust framework and standards.

"As we've seen with the success of our collaboration with Healtheway, partnership is key to solving the problems of national HIE to improve care for everyone in the United States," said Jamie Ferguson, vice president, health IT strategy and policy, Kaiser Permanente. "Having OCHIN join the CCC is another step in the right direction to provide access to the right information, for the right patient, at the right time."

The CCC is working to develop health information exchange innovations through a Learning Lab in which observations about information exchanges can provide raw data to refine and improve the effectiveness of health information exchange processes. Through the Learning Lab, the CCC and Healtheway have made progress on two of the largest challenges in health information exchange: patient identity matching and authorization management.

OCHIN, already a member of Healtheway, brings a wealth of technical and operational experience to the CCC in support of its role as an innovation arm to Healtheway.

The CCC will discuss these developments at booth 8165 at HIMSS14.  Christopher Ross, chief information officer, Mayo Clinic, and Eric Heflin, chief technology officer, eHealth Exchange, will discuss patient identity management and consent authorization during a CHIME General Education Session: National Solutions to HIE Patient Identity and Authorization Management at HIMSS14 on Feb. 25, 8:30 – 9:30 a.m. EST.

Follow @KPDigitalHealth for more information about the Care Connectivity Consortium at #HIMSS14.

About OCHIN
Established in 2000 through a partnership with CareOregon, the Oregon Primary Care Association, Multnomah County Health Department, Clackamas County Health Department, and Virginia Garcia Health Clinics, OCHIN became an independent nonprofit in 2002. Headquartered in Portland, Oregon, OCHIN is one of the nation's largest Health Information Networks and is recognized for its innovative use of Health IT to improve the integration and delivery of health care services across a wide variety of practices. With an historical emphasis on safety net clinics and small practices, OCHIN has expanded to include private practice providers and specialists. To date, OCHIN operates in 17 states and supports 75 health center networks and over 4,500 medical providers who serve over 2.5 million patients. For more information, visit www.ochin.org.

About Care Connectivity Consortium
Founded in April 2011, the Care Connectivity Consortium is committed to innovation through collaboration among its founding organizations and Healtheway. Founded by five pioneers in the use of electronic medical records for their patients—Geisinger Health System, Group Health Cooperative, Intermountain Healthcare, Kaiser Permanente, and Mayo Clinic — the goal of the CCC is to make health information exchange technologies more versatile and valuable for patients, caregivers and health care organizations. Upon this foundation of experience and resources, the CCC is working to develop and incubate new capabilities for consideration and adoption by eHealth Exchange participants and the broader HIE community. A goal of this collaboration is to build a learning organization through a Learning Lab, where observations about information exchanges can provide raw data, which is useful to refine and improve the effectiveness of the associated processes. Visit careconnectivity.org for more information.

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 approximately 9.1 million members in eight 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/share.

Contact:
Ravi Poorsina
510-421-0557
[email protected]

Amanda Wardell
510-292-0758
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Ruby Haughton-Pitts
503-784.2284
[email protected]

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SOURCE Kaiser Permanente