New york care information gateway

HIMSS FY17 HIE Case Studies Task Force HIE Case Study: Patient and Caregiver Engagement Strategies New York Care Information Gateway NY Care Information Gateway (NYCIG) is a Regional Health Information Organization (RHIO). NYCIG facilitates the exchange of electronic health records (EHRs) to enable access by providers at the time treatment is rendered. Access to patient health information in a RHIO requires patient consent to be kept on file. In the state of New York, there are presently eight (8) state funded, not-for-profit RHIOs. In May 2015, Interboro Regional Health Information Organization and eHealth Network of Long Island combined operations and became NY Care Information Gateway. NYCIG has since successfully merged onto one technical platform and has increased its number of participants steadily and doubled in size administratively to support the business demands of its membership. NYCIG’s Board of Directors comprises members from a broad spectrum of stakeholders. Directors include representatives from hospitals, physician practices, long -term care facilities, a payer organization and a patient support/advocacy organization. NYCIG’s Participants include health care providers from across New York City, Nassau and Suffolk Counties including all of the NYC Health & Hospitals, Diagnostic & Treatment Centers, Stony Brook University Hospital, Southampton Hospital, Eastern Long Island Hospital, Peconic Bay Medical Center and NYU Winthrop Hospital. The HIE platform currently houses over 6 million unique patient records. For more information on RHIOs in NY State, visit www.NYeHealth.org. For this case study, Sue-Ann Villano, MPA, Senior Director of Client Services, Marketing & Outreach, NY Care Information Gateway was interviewed about the technical, financial, regulatory, and political barriers to use of the HIE as a successful patient and caregiver engagement vehicle to improve care quality and outcomes. ©HIMSS 2017 HIMSS FY17 HIE Case Studies Task Force How has your organization worked to engage patients and caregivers? NYCIG’s Provider Relation Specialists make every effort to attend patient-centric outreach events. NYCIG team members often engage clinicians and end users of the RHIO and educate them through the NYCIG on boarding process or end user training program. NYCIG’s widespread geographic distribution of Participants and large patient population add to the challenge of successfully engaging patients more often than we would like. NYCIG works closely with the NY State Department of Health, the NY eHealth Collaborative (NYeC) and the other seven (7) RHIOs in New York to communicate with the public about RHIOs. NYCIG believes that communicating the value of the RHIO is required in order to create greater patient awareness, leading to more patients requesting the participation of their own care providers. We also strongly believe that with increased awareness of RHIOs by patients, more patients will consent to allow the sharing of their health data. The NY RHIOs work closely with one another to ensure that policies and procedures are uniform across each organization; this allows for consistency of patient experience and effective sharing of information across the region and state.