News

MedPlus® Successfully Demonstrates Data Exchange Between Multiple Regional HIEs

First Official NHIN Trials the Largest of Their Kind, Specific Use-Case Testing to Follow

09/18/08

CINCINNATI – September 18, 2008 – MedPlus®, the healthcare information technology subsidiary of Quest Diagnostics® Incorporated (NYSE:DGX), today announced it has successfully demonstrated HIE-to-HIE (Health Information Exchange) patient data sharing as part of the Nationwide Health Information Network’s (NHIN) Trial Implementations Core Content Testing Event. The August 2008 event represented the largest such demonstration of NHIN capabilities to date. Sponsored by the U.S. government’s Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, the NHIN seeks to establish a secure, nationwide, interoperable health information infrastructure to connect providers, consumers and others involved in supporting health and healthcare.

MedPlus is currently providing technology and support to one third of the original nine NHIN contractors across three states. The company’s technology serves more hospitals, physicians and patients than any other software provider involved in the initiative.

Data exchange tests were performed between MedPlus’ regional HIE clients and other NHIN Trial Implementation program participants. Preliminary testing successfully demonstrated interoperability between them, proving that one HIE could identify a common patient with another HIE, and then request and receive a patient summary from the second HIE. Once the common patient had been identified, the sending HIE needed to return a continuity of care document (CCD), otherwise known as an HITSP C32 transaction.

“MedPlus is committed to both promoting the success of the NHIN initiative and helping its clients participate in this important national endeavor,” explains Richard Mahoney, MedPlus president and vice president of Healthcare Information Solutions for Quest Diagnostics. “That’s why we’ve been providing expert counsel in guiding development of the architecture since the very beginning as part of the NHIN working group. The NHIN Core Content Testing Event was the largest such demonstration to date, and the outcome has shown that the NHIN goals can, and will, be met.”

Within the NHIN, MedPlus is providing HIE infrastructure for the New York Clinical Information Exchange (NYCLIX, Inc.) under the umbrella of the NY eHealth Collaborative (NYeC); the Long Beach Network for Health (LBNH) in Southern California; and the New Mexico Health Information Collaborative (NMHIC), created, staffed and operated by the Lovelace Clinic Foundation (LCF).

“The success of the Testing Event is an important step toward establishing a national health network, which holds great potential benefit for American patients and practitioners alike,” says Gilad J. Kuperman, MD, PhD, chairman of the NYCLIX board. “MedPlus has proven to be proactive, quickly delivering these solutions despite their incredible complexity. I can't overstate the importance of this event. In an era when implementation of an HIE is still considered a major accomplishment, thanks to MedPlus, NYCLIX has already demonstrated inter-HIE data exchange according to national standards.”

Understanding that the ultimate objective of NHIN-contracted HIEs is to foster better patient care at the local level, MedPlus has also been working to help its clients leverage this effort to create value and support their local health community. The company has taken a particularly active role in driving expansion of the NMHIC to create value, both clinically and operationally, at the local level.

“Our partnership with MedPlus has allowed us to not only meet NHIN technological and functionality requirements, but also to begin branching out to serve the needs of other NMHIC stakeholders,” says Jeff Blair, director of Health Informatics at LCF and lead for LCF/NMHIC’s NHIN Project. “We are now planning the expansion of the network services of our HIE to support several large medical practices in Albuquerque and eReporting to the state Department of Health in Santa Fe, as well as connecting the Health Department’s ambulatory clinics throughout the state. MedPlus has been instrumental in helping us broaden the reach and value of NMHIC to better serve the patients of our state.”

While establishing connectivity and successful data sharing between HIEs is a critical component of the success of the NHIN, there is still a great deal of work to be done before the initiative can go live nationwide. To that end, MedPlus is already in active development for further, specific-use case testing set to begin in Q4 2008. These will assess the NHIN infrastructure in a real-world environment, with use cases on lab reporting, quality, emergency responder and medication management data sharing.

“The fact that all of our clients have passed preliminary testing with flying colors has us very optimistic for the future of the NHIN,” adds Mahoney. “As a company, we’re proud to successfully demonstrate HIE-to-HIE data passage and get the NHIN connectivity ball rolling. This has huge potential to change the American healthcare system for the better and MedPlus is honored to be playing its part.”