Hawai'i Island Beacon Community Expands Alere Wellogic Health Information Exchange in Partnership with North Hawai'i Community Hospital

HILO, Hawaii, July 16, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The Hawai'i Island Beacon Community (HIBC) has begun to expand the region's first health information exchange (HIE), following a successful pilot phase which began last December at North Hawai'i Community Hospital. The HIE facilitates safer, more efficient, and cost-effective care within the connected health care community across Hawai'i Island. It enables doctors to easily view and share patient records from participating hospitals, doctors' offices, imaging centers, pharmacies, laboratories and other practices. It also facilitates secure doctor-to-doctor messaging for referrals and consultations, and establishes the foundation for care coordination across the region. This HIE can also connect to other regional HIEs and eventually the Nationwide Health Information Network.

"The Hawai'i Island Beacon project is all about building a better system of health care delivery by providing better care and managing cost. Alere Wellogic's HIE is helping us reach this ambitious goal by improving the communication and coordination of clinical care and support services," said Susan Hunt, HIBC Project Director and CEO. "It has been a tremendous demonstration of what collaboration, technology, and community partnerships can achieve. We have accomplished a great deal in a relatively short period of time and are looking forward to next steps."

The HIE was designed in collaboration with the physicians and technology leadership at North Hawai'i Community Hospital, HIBC, Alere Wellogic, and Booz Allen Hamilton. 

Key Facts

• First live HIE on Hawai'i Island now connects doctors in North Hawai'i.
• Charter participants are NHCH, affiliated physicians, and their reference laboratories and imaging centers.
• Authorized doctors and their staff have easy and immediate access to patient information across all connected venues of care, from emergency rooms to specialist offices.
• The shared information is harmonized for easy review and to enable decision support.
• Doctors and staff already observe positive impact on information availability, operational efficiency, and patient care.
• This project lays the foundation for Alere's electronic health record, wireless diagnostic devices, decision support, analytics, care coordination and population health reporting functions.

Participating organizations include: Cleveland Clinic radiologists at North Hawai'i Community Hospital, Clinical Laboratories of Hawai'i, Diagnostic Laboratory Services, Hawai'i Emergency Physicians Associated, Hamakua Health Center, North Hawai'i Community Hospital, North Hawai'i Hospitalist Physicians and North Hawai'i Medical Group.

"I have always been impressed by the usability of the HIE from Alere Wellogic," said Dr. William Park, senior general surgeon at North Hawai'i Community Hospital. "We ultimately chose Alere Wellogic because they are unique in understanding what we doctors need -- tools that help us be more efficient, but in a way that doesn't require fundamental change in how we run our day."

Care providers can more easily and securely communicate, collaborate, and coordinate patient care. For example, emergency room doctors can now view patient histories kept by primary care physicians, preventing adverse events in situations when seconds can make a difference. In turn, primary care doctors can receive and view information regarding their patients' admissions and discharges. Alere Wellogic's unique HIE visual presentation also compiles that information into a single sophisticated screen that enables care providers to see the information and trends on their computer or iPad quickly and easily.

"We can now, with the simple click of the mouse or touch on an iPad, see a patient's entire medical history from all participants without having to laboriously chase it down or piece it together," continued Dr. Park. "This demonstrates what I believed was possible: that technology can and must be elegant in how it presents patient information. This solution represents a fundamental step forward in how we deliver and coordinate care."

"It is no secret that adoption of technology has been a longstanding challenge for our industry," said Sumit Nagpal, President and CEO of Alere Wellogic. "Limited expectations and brute-force solutions have too often been imposed on doctors and their staff. It is not surprising that these solutions have failed to meet doctors' needs and seen limited use. We knew right from the beginning that we had to inspire daily, routine adoption by doctors and their staff for this investment to be meaningful and sustainable, and we obtained it by launching with a rich set of patient information, compiled and presented in the way doctors work. Our providers can't imagine going backward, and are excited about what we have in the works to build on this foundation."

About Hawai'i Island Beacon Community

The Hawai'i Island Beacon Community (HIBC) is an island-wide federally funded collaborative project administered through the University of Hawai'i at Hilo. HIBC is committed to improving the health of Hawai'i Island residents and empowering them to be more actively involved in their own health. As one of 17 communities participating in the national Beacon Community Program through the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), HIBC is building and strengthening health IT, translating investments in health IT to measurable improvements in health and health care, and testing innovative approaches to improve health care performance. For more information, visit hibeacon.org and healthIT.gov.

About North Hawai'i Community Hospital

North Hawai'i Community Hospital is a private, nonprofit community hospital that serves the residents of North Hawai'i and greater Hawai'i Island. The hospital opened in May 1996 after decades of dreaming and nearly 10 years of planning. Its mission is to improve the health and wellness of people of the region. Its vision emerged from the desire to be "not just another hospital," but rather the most healing hospital in the world.

About Alere Wellogic

Alere Wellogic is the health information solutions arm of Alere, Inc. Alere Wellogic's portfolio of interoperable health information solutions, including its industry-leading Health Information Exchange and Electronic Health Record, has been the confident choice of doctors across the US.

About Alere, Inc.

By developing new capabilities in near-patient diagnosis, monitoring and health management, Alere (NYSE: ALR) enables individuals to take charge of improving their health and quality of life at home. Alere's global leading products and services, as well as its new product development efforts, focus on cardiology, infectious disease, toxicology, diabetes, oncology and women's health. Alere is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts. For more information regarding Alere please visit www.alere.com.

Press Contacts:
Hemant Chowdhry
Alere Wellogic
617-621-9775 ext. 7121
hemant.chowdhry@wellogic.com 

SOURCE Alere Wellogic