Healtheway Announces Founding Members for Groundbreaking Public/Private Health IT Exchange

Health Heavyweights to Be the Vanguard for the Promotion and Adoption of Nationwide Health Information Exchange

Healtheway, the non-profit, public-private partnership that operationally supports the eHealth Exchange (formerly known as the Nationwide Health Information Network Exchange) today announced its nine founding organizations. The organizations are influential representatives from across the healthcare spectrum. They will supplement the involvement of the federal government that has coalesced around the eHealth Exchange.

Healtheway’s nine founding members are:

  • American Medical Association (AMA)
  • Epic
  • ICA
  • Kaiser Permanente
  • MedVirginia
  • Mirth Corporation
  • New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeC)
  • Orion Health
  • WEDI

The nine founding organizations reflect a diverse and distinguished group of health IT thought leaders and innovators who will guide Healtheway as it lays the foundation for a secure nationwide health information exchange.

“Those who have worked in health IT over the last decade know that progress comes through consensus,” said Mariann Yeager, Executive Director, Healtheway, Inc. “Our founding members have committed to hands-on involvement in helping to shape Healtheway’s future and collaborating to identify and promote effective and secure, nationwide approaches to health information exchange. In addition to technology vendors working at the forefront of the market, the group also includes technology implementers and leading associations who represent a broad range of stakeholders, including the provider community. Though our membership will continue to grow in the coming years, our founding members bring the right blend of skills and perspectives to keep us at the forefront of health IT efforts in the United States.”

The founding members’ activities will supplement the work of the Healtheway board of directors. Founding members will be charged with exploring new health IT opportunities and providing recommendations to the board regarding issues that would be of value to the full Healtheway community.

“Today’s announcement reinforces our commitment to establishing a secure, interoperable nationwide health information exchange network that is capable of overcoming many of the challenging issues facing health information exchange today,” said Michael Matthews, Healtheway Board Chair and founding member, and CEO of MedVirginia. “The founding members each come at health information exchange from a different perspective, and it’s that unique perspective we will rely on. We must continue building an exchange that can meet the needs of organizations large and small, in a wide variety of clinical and technical environments.”

As part of its charter in operationally supporting the eHealth Exchange, Healtheway is working to expand membership and participation in the eHealth Exchange. Originally formed as the Nationwide Health Information Network Exchange program in 2007 by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC), the eHealth Exchange has since transitioned into a true public/private partnership. Involving health IT industry luminaries allows the eHealth Exchange to expand and increase nationwide participation. Today the community includes thousands of providers and millions of patients.

For more information, please visit: http://healthewayinc.org/

About Healtheway

Healtheway is a non-profit organization chartered to operationally support the eHealth Exchange, a rapidly growing community of exchange partners, who securely share information under a common trust framework and a common set of rules. Currently, 40 participants include four federal agencies, six states, eight beacon communities and more than a dozen Health Information Organizations (HIOs) and health systems, which represent hundreds of hospitals, thousands of providers and millions of patients. Healtheway collaborate across the healthcare industry to develop implementation strategies that enable secure, interoperable nationwide exchange of health information. For more information about Healtheway and the eHealth Exchange: www.healthewayinc.org.

About American Medical Association (AMA)

The American Medical Association is the premiere national organization empowering the nation’s physicians to provide safer, higher quality, and more efficient care for patients and communities. The AMA is unwavering in its commitment to shape a better future for America’s medical students, physicians and patients with a single goal: to advance the health of the nation. To learn more, visit www. ama-assn.org.

About ICA

Originating from clinical informatics solutions developed within Vanderbilt Medical Center, ICA’s state-of-the-art CareAlign® interoperability and informatics platform addresses and solves data and communication challenges for many healthcare entities, including hospitals, IPAs, IDNs, HIEs, payers and others. CareAlign delivers a flexible architecture to connect, collect, consume and intelligently distribute data through Direct, IHE, HL7, and custom methods for use in EHRs, third party applications, and ICA’s applications. CareAlign unites a wide range of information and supports analytic needs associated with population health management, transitions of care communication, re-admissions reduction, meaningful use requirements and PCMH/ACO operations. Visit www.icainformatics.com, and follow us on Twitter, ICA HITme Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube.

About Kaiser Permanente

Kaiser Permanente is committed to helping shape the future of health care. We are recognized as one of America’s leading health care providers and not-for-profit health plans. Founded in 1945, our mission is to provide high-quality, affordable health care services and to improve the health of our members and the communities we serve. We currently serve more than 9.1 million members in nine states and the District of Columbia. Care for members and patients is focused on their total health and guided by their personal physicians, specialists and team of caregivers. Our expert and caring medical teams are empowered and supported by industry-leading technology advances and tools for health promotion, disease prevention, state-of-the-art care delivery and world-class chronic disease management. Kaiser Permanente is dedicated to care innovations, clinical research, health education and the support of community health. For more information, go to: kp.org/newscenter.

About MedVirginia

MedVirginia, founded in 2000, is dedicated to the enhancement of quality, safety and effectiveness through the use of health information technology. MedVirginia’s health information exchange provides access to over 2M unique patient records. Industry milestones include being the first HIE participant in the eHealth Exchange and the first HIE to connect to the Social Security Administration and the Veterans Administration and Department of Defense health records systems (VLER). For more information, go to: http://www.medvirginia.com/

About Mirth Corporation

Headquartered in Costa Mesa, California, Mirth Corporation is a global leader in health information technology. The company recently was recognized by the Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) and the Health Story Project as one of the nation’s first vendors to successfully meet the Health Level Seven (HL7) Consolidated-CDA® (C-CDA) standard. In 2012, Mirth was recognized as one of the top vendors in HIE Client Satisfaction according to the market research firm Black Book. Mirth technology is used daily by thousands of health professionals and institutions worldwide to streamline care management processes and to securely exchange health information across enterprises, communities and broad geographies. For more information, visit http://www.mirthcorp.com.

About The New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeC)

NYeC is a not-for-profit organization, working in partnership with the New York State Department of Health to improve healthcare for all New Yorkers through health information technology (health IT). Founded in 2006 by healthcare leaders, NYeC receives funding from state and federal grants to serve as the focal point for health IT in the State of New York. NYeC works to develop policies and standards, to assist healthcare providers in making the shift to electronic health records, and to coordinate the creation of the Statewide Health Information Network of New York (SHIN-NY), a network to connect healthcare providers statewide. www.nyehealth.org & @NYeHealth

About Orion Health

Founded in 1993 in Auckland, New Zealand, Orion Health is the only global, independently owned eHealth technology company. With an inherent ability to interconnect a wide variety of healthcare information systems, Orion Health has become the world’s leading provider of health information exchange (HIE) and healthcare integration solutions. Orion Health has extensive experience in the design and installation of complex systems within demanding healthcare environments. Today, Orion Health products and solutions are implemented in more than 30 countries, used by hundreds of thousands of clinicians, and help facilitate care for tens of millions of patients. Clinicians, provider facilities and OEM partners rely on Orion Health to facilitate data exchange between hospitals, health systems, HIEs, and affiliated providers and medical devices, resulting in improved care coordination, increased cost savings and efficiencies, and enhanced quality of care.

In the U.S., Orion Health HIE provides the technology backbone for commercial, state and regional HIEs across the country. Orion Health Rhapsody® Integration Engine is used by nearly all state and local health departments for public health reporting. Customers include Catholic Health Initiatives, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Beacon Community of the Inland Northwest, North Carolina HIE, Geisinger Health System, Inland Empire HIE, Kaiser Permanente, Lahey Clinic, Louisiana Health Care Quality Forum, Lehigh Valley Health Network, Maine HealthInfoNet, Massachusetts Health Information Highway, New Hampshire Health Information Organization and St. Vincent’s HealthCare. For more information, visit www.orionhealth.com. Connect with us on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

About WEDI

WEDI is the leading authority on the use of Health IT to improve healthcare information exchange in order to enhance the quality of care, improve efficiency, and reduce costs of our nation’s healthcare system. WEDI was formed in 1991 by the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) and was designated in the 1996 HIPAA legislation as an advisor to HHS. WEDI’s membership includes a broad coalition of organizations, including: hospitals, providers, health plans, vendors, government agencies, consumers, not-for-profit organizations, and standards bodies. www.wedi.org