More than 115 North Carolina hospitals and more than 4,000 ambulatory physician practices have signed on to NC HealthConnex, the state-designated health information exchange (HIE) network, managed by the NC Health Information Exchange Authority (NC HIEA). New participants are joining the network regularly.
“This is an important milestone in improving health care for all North Carolinians,” said Christie Burris, executive director of the NC HIEA. “The State of North Carolina has a vision to create communities of connected health care providers electronically across the state to help improve health care quality, enhance patient safety and improve health outcomes.”
The NC Health Information Exchange Authority has been a part of the Department of Information Technology since late 2015. Further, NCDIT leadership recently named it one of the department’s top priorities. “The progress we’ve seen by the HIEA and its leadership has been phenomenal since they’ve joined our department,” said NCDIT Secretary Eric Boyette. “We’re proud to support this work that will help make our state a healthier place to live.”
NC HealthConnex is a secure, standardized electronic network that allows participating health care providers to share patient information with each other. State law required hospitals, doctors, physician assistants, and nurse practitioners with an electronic health record system and who participate in Medicaid to connect to NC HealthConnex by June 1.
However, Burris said, any health care providers who did not meet the deadline will receive an automatic extension once they have a Participation Agreement filed with the NC HIEA. With the extension, health care providers have until June 1, 2019, to complete the onboarding process and begin sharing patient clinical and demographic data within NC HealthConnex.
Created in 2015, the NC HIEA connects health care providers – hospitals, physicians, pharmacies, laboratories, urgent care facilities, and other health care organizations. When health care providers have access to near real-time patient information, shared securely by other health care providers, they are able to make safer and more informed medical decisions. Duplicate and unnecessary testing, dangerous combinations of medications, and other medical errors are less likely when health care providers have the information they need at the point of care.
NC HealthConnex securely houses more than 4.5 million unique patient records. About 98 percent of North Carolina’s health care providers are expected to be connected to NC HealthConnex by June 1, 2020.
NC HIEA recently connected to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs health information exchange (V HIE), as well as the Georgia HIE, GaHIN. Further, NC HIEA is delivering other value-added features, such as encrypted direct messaging for providers, public health reporting, and clinical data analytics reporting and notifications.
For more information, go to https://hiea.nc.gov/.