On Thursday, I met with the Chief Medical Officers working group of the Metro Chicago Healthcare Council to discuss Healthcare Information Exchange strategy in a world rapidly moving toward accountable care organizations, patient centered medical homes, and global capitation.
Chicago has created a consolidated summary record for patients using technologies from Microsoft (aggregation and analytics) and HealthUnity (master patient index services). CSC provides Systems Integration and Program Management.
Importantly, they've built governance, trust, a policy framework, engagement, and commitment from stakeholders in the greater Chicago metro area.
Their architecture is a bit different from the Massachusetts approach and it will be very interesting to compare lessons learned over the next year. They are receiving HL7 feeds from participating hospitals, matching identical patient records together, and aggregating the data using the kind of data-atomic attribute-value pairs suggested by the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology Healthcare IT report.
The centralized/consolidated summary record can then be accessed by authorized clinical users such as primary care physicians, hospitalists, and emergency departments.
The Chicago HIE will also offer secure messaging to support the kinds of push use cases we've discussed in Massachusetts i.e.
Referral/Consult
Admission notification
Post-encounter summary
Discharge Summary/Instructions
Lab Order/Results
Public health (SS, Imm., ELR)
They've worked hard to engage the Chief Medical Officers of the region's hospitals and to create patient demand for HIE services via consumer education.
A great group of people and definitely an HIE to watch!