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RHIO Services

Overview

Rochester RHIO provides data exchange services for hospitals, clinical practices, long term care, home health, and more, all of which promote and support the movement towards a patient-centric view of clinical information. At the core of Rochester RHIO services are a set of policies and procedures that protect patient privacy and security. On top of these core policies sits a community-wide Master Patient Index (MPI) and Record Locator Service (RLS) to identify, locate, and present medical information including lab, radiology reports and images, and other clinical information for patients who choose to participate.

Rochester RHIO's community health information exchange (HIE) supports both a query-based approach to requesting clinical information and a clinical messaging model where test results are routed directly to ordering, referring, and CC’d clinicians. To add a new service, contact RHIO Support at support@grrhio.org, or call 1-877-865-7446 (RHIO).

Data Integration

Central to a health information exchange (HIE) is the integration and exchange of data from a variety of  IT systems from hospitals and clinical offices to social service and community-based organizations. Rochester RHIO works with each data-providing organization's staff to ensure a smooth and fairly painless approach to this technical exchange. With a strong track record in connecting hospitals, physician practices and other healthcare organizations, RHIO staff quickly leverage existing hospital and lab messaging systems and portals to securely route clinical messages to the HIE and the Explore+ advanced clinical query portal, and to regional healthcare providers. RHIO is connected to over 35 EMR/EHR (health IT) vendors.

Explore+

Explore+ is a secure, patient search engine that includes clinical data for over 3 million patients—accurate, up-to-date and always available. Whether in the hospital or almost anywhere else, users can immediately access the data they need when a patient or colleague requires guidance. Explore+ is a valuable resource available to authorized medical service providers across the greater Finger Lakes Region in upstate New York (including Rochester and Southern Tier). Explore+ includes various types of patient health information (PHI) including sensitive health information, HIV testing and Part 2 data (SAMHSA) providing a more complete picture of a patient's health. More: What Explore+ Has to Offer

Explore+ Image Exchange

In Explore+, clinicians can instantly access diagnostic-quality images such as X-rays, MRIs and more from hospitals and clinics across the Rochester RHIO region (14+ counties). These images can be viewed from any computer and clinicans can compare images in seconds. New in 2020: Tomosynthesis Images (3-D Mammograms) now available. More: The Image Exchange Clinicians Need  

Have a PACS System? Inquire about RHIO's Transfer to PACS service.

MyResults Delivered

Already using an EHR? Rochester RHIO can deliver electronic results directly to your practice’s EHR. No more logging into multiple portals for results. No more dollars spent on interfaces with multiple data providers. No more phoning, faxing and waiting weeks for lab results, or sending patients for another round of tests. Rochester RHIO works with over 35 EHR vendors to facilitate integration. One interface provides lab, radiology and clinical documents from all participating labs, hospitals and radiology centers.

Physician practices with MyResults Delivered can opt to add Image Enable Results Delivery (IERD) for an additional cost. With IERD, a one-click message is delivered with a direct link to the diagnostic-quality imaging study. Rochester RHIO will work with your EHR vendor to facilitate integration. More: Test Results Delivered Directly into Your EHR

DIRECT (Secure Messaging Service)

Rochester RHIO provides DIRECT messaging services for RHIO participants and is accredited as a member of the DirectTrust Organization. Rochester RHIO offers secure access to clinical information between providers in our community. Note: This service may also be available to select non-HIPAA-covered entities.   

DIRECT is simple. It works like secure email, and can be as easy as sending an electronic fax from within an EHR. The added advantage is a recipient can file many documents into the patient chart as discrete data. DIRECT messaging supports patient referrals and transitions of care. Unlike RHIO Explore+, which has information from many sources, DIRECT is a point-to-point communication exchange allowing one care provider to send specific information to another specific provider securely. While many EHR vendors are including DIRECT as part of their product to support Meaningful Use requirements, practices do not need to have an EHR to use DIRECT services from Rochester RHIO. More: Referrals and Clinical Data Delivered - As Easy As Email

Facts for DIRECT users

  • Any RHIO participant can request a DIRECT license.
  • Some EHRs provide their DIRECT messaging service, including Allscripts, AthenaHealth, Cerner, DBmotion, eClinicalworks, Greenway and Medplus.
  • Rochester RHIO is connected to all certified HISPs through DIRECT. Through DIRECT, users communicate across the nation to other care providers.
  • Rochester RHIO's DIRECT service includes a C-CDA Viewer, which allows users to view and print C-CDAs (Continuity of Care Documents). 

RHIO's clinical messaging architecture also supports two levels of integration to third party EHR systems. Call Rochester RHIO at 1-877-865-7446 (RHIO) for more information.

Alerts/MyAlerts

Alerts: It's simple. Physician practices, home health providers, care managers, and health systems can receive Alert notifications whenever their patients are admitted or discharged from any of our regional or statewide hospitals or emergency departments. This is a Core service (paid for by New York State). Practices receive RHIO Alerts for all their consented patients. Alerts notifications are available from all the RHIOs across New York State (Statewide or Cross-QE Alerts).

To sign up for basic Alerts, the practice needs to have consented patients and a DIRECT message address. More: RHIO Alerts Fit Your Workflow

MyAlerts is a list-based custom Alerts service, which allows participants to customize the Alerts received based on the needs of both the care provider and patient. MyAlerts is an enhancement of the core RHIO Alerts service, and can be:

  • delivered through DIRECT messaging, or
  • integrated through an EHR vendor or system

MyAlerts is a custom, value-added service that has been developed to meet specific clinical use cases and allows for the customization of clinical workflows. If you'd like to pilot customized Alerts, call 1-877-865-7446 (RHIO) and ask to be connected to your Regional Account Manager. More: MyAlerts How You Need Them

Public Health Services

Explore+ for Public Health Users: An advanced clinical query portal for staff at public health departments to securely access individual patient records, to support contact tracing, and to perform public health research. Public Health access does not require patient consent. The cost to access is covered by state funding.

Emergency Preparedness Services: In a widespread emergency—when families are displaced or separated—finding loved ones is of the utmost importance. During a disaster or other emergency event, Rochester RHIO grants basic system access—activated only during a declared state of emergency—that not only helps family members find each other, but also ensures those with chronic or life-threatening conditions receive the care they need during a time of crisis. During a declared state of emergency, RHIO can grant this basic access to governement agencies, disaster relief agencies or other organizations, dependent on needs. Rochester RHIO works closely with the New York State Department of Health and participates regularly in regoinal disaster planning and table top excercises at the county and state level. Rochester RHIO also provides critical data support when EHR systems go down unexpectedly. Is Rochester RHIO part of your emergency preparedness plan? The costs of emergency preparedness services are covered by state funding. 

Custom Reporting & Services: The ability to route public health information to NYS- and NYC-designated locations on behalf of providers. Offerings include cancer registries, immunizations, newborn screening, significant lab results and syndromic surveillance. Custom reporting and other service routing integrations require a discovery call to learn more about what is needed and a custom quote.

To sign up or learn more about any of these Public Health Services, call 1-877-865-7446 (RHIO) and ask to be connected to your Regional Account Manager.

Contribute Data

This is Rochester RHIO's call to participating providers to share patient data (C-CDAs) with the RHIO through their EHRs. With this additional data, RHIO will be able to provide more complete patient health records, supporting the highest quality patient care—effectively transforming the healthcare system. Learn more: Data Contribution

Subscribe/Forwarding

Rochester RHIO can provide organizations a data feed of clinical data associated with consented patients (Subscription), or a data feed based on a contractual relationship between RHIO participants (Forwarding). These value-based services are a powerful tool for participants to gather a more complete clinical record of their patients.  For more a custom quote of this service, call 1-877-865-7446 (RHIO) and ask to be connected to your Regional Account Manager.

Secondary Use (Community Initiatives, Grants & Other Business)

In addition, Rochester RHIO responds to data requests that support community initiatives, grants, public health, research, and healthcare operations. Data requests are reviewed and approved by Rochester RHIO’s Secondary Use Committee. To apply for a Secondary, download the Secondary Use Information Sheet. For more information, call 1-877-865-7446 (RHIO) and ask to be connected to your Regional Account Manager.

EHR Connectivity

Is your EHR certified? Verify certification through the Certified Health IT Product List. 

Rochester RHIO's clinical messaging architecture supports integration to third party EHR systems, based on a standardized HL7 interface. 

The following EHR Vendors are connected with Rochester RHIO. To activate a new interface to your practice, contact your EHR vendor. 

Allscripts Professional Amazing Charts Athena Health, Inc Avairis
BlueFire Corporation COMET/Lintech DrugScan eClinicalWorks
e-MDS Epic Systems Corporation Foothold Technology Greenway Medical Technologies, Inc.
Homecare Homebase (HCHB) Homegrown Health Systems Technology, Inc (HST) iPatient Care
Medent Medisked Meditab MEDITECH
McKesson Misys (Allscripts) Netsmart Technologies (Sequest) NextGen
Office Practicum PNP PrecisionCare Software Inc. QuadraMed Corporation
Quic/Doc / DocuTrac Reliable Health Systems Seaquest SOAPware, Inc
STI Chartmaker Vitera (Sage) VorroHealth (Therap Services)  

Cross Sector Data Exchange

In 2019, Rochester RHIO published the Cross-Sector Data Exchange: Data Use and Legal Privacy white paper, commissioned on behalf of the Systems Integration Project. Research funding support was provided by the New York State Department of Health through the New York eHealth Collaborative. The cross-data exchange paper was prepared by Harter Secrest & Emery LLP. The paper takes a look at what it would take (legally) to share data between three broad industry sectors: health, education and social services. The conclusions include that some data, but not all data, could be shared. This paper serves at the foundation of a global consent policy that would need to be implemented.

Regional Data Normalization

RHIO's three-year Regional Data Normalization project, funded by the Greater Rochester Health Foundation, successfully built community collaboration and education for standardization of lab test codes. More than 80% of lab tests now include community standardized codes, and a majority of test results sent to providers via Rochester RHIO's results delivery services also include these codes. As a result, healthcare providers can compare test results from regional labs more efficiently.

The Regional Data Normalization project has widened its focus to examine community standards for naming radiology reports and clinical documentation, which will better support healthcare providers in their efforts to efficiently access patient information to support quality healthcare. LOINC (Logical Observation Identifier Names and Codes) is a universal code system for identifying laboratory and clinical observations. From serum levels of Hepatitis B surface antigen to diastolic blood pressure, LOINC has standardized terms for all kinds of observations and measurements that enable exchange and aggregation of electronic health data from many independent systems.

The accurate coding of lab results is critical to the effective comparison of values to support patient care and quality reporting. Regional labs are working with Rochester RHIO to address the need for accurate, standardized codes for lab results across the community. Leadership from labs, Monroe County Medical Society, and the RHIO's Regional Data Normalization (RDN) project funded by the Greater Rochester Health Foundation are contuning to collaborate to build a compendium of the 200 most common lab tests, and the LOINC codes that link similar tests.

If you are interested in learning more about Regional Data Normalization, email rhio_communications@grrhio.org.

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