Issue link: https://viewer.e-digitaledition.com/i/89174
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ LOCAL HEALTH UPDATE +++ +++ Region-wide HIE Approaches Reality as More Providers Connect Through Healthcare Access San Antonio By Gijs van Oort, Executive Director, Healthcare Access San Antonio H EALTHCARE ACCESS SAN ANTONIO (HASA) is a nonprofit community collaborative and the designated provider of health information exchange (HIE) connectivity throughout 22 South Central Texas counties, including San Antonio. As a nonprofit, the organiza- tion's start-up efforts are funded through state and local sources. Since late 2011, HASA has made great progress in its goal to expand secure patient-information sharing across disparate electronic medical record (EMR) platforms, and more and more health care providers are connecting to this region-wide portal. For health care providers, delivering quality patient care is the focus of every workday. And delivering the most effective and efficient care requires that physicians have accurate, up-to-date information about their patients. HASA brings together health care providers — from large health systems to single-physician practices — to enable the secure exchange of health information so providers can have this data securely at their fingertips when and where they need it. Why HIE? Simply put, patients want it, providers need it, and federal reimbursement is driving it. As the changing health care land- scape shifts from a fee-for-service payment model to outcomes-driven reimbursement, HASA's portfolio of services is designed to support many of the efforts to attain better health and better health care at a reasonable cost. Whether you are affiliated with a regional health system, a hospital, a large physician group or a small practice, HASA has an HIE solution to meet your needs. Core to HASA's five service lines is HASAProviderAssist, a shared community repository where all providers with EMRs can deposit and retrieve information in a secure environment. This complex techni- cal integration can only be accomplished with a high level of collaboration and trust among providers and HASA, something that has typified HASA's contributors since its inception in 2005. Currently, Baptist Health System has agreed to be the first organization to go live. Information regarding a patient's allergies, major diagnoses, procedures, pathology and labs, as well as medications, immunizations and radiology reports, will make up a patient's profile and can be easily retrieved by tending physicians. Needless to say, HASA works closely with providers' privacy officers and in com- pliance with state and federal regulations regarding patient privacy and security. HASAProviderAssist will be fully functional toward the end of 2012, as the major providers will be feeding informa- tion into the system. Consumers, too, are waiting to get on board. If data security can be assured and patients have control over who can see their information, more than 85% of locally surveyed consumers favor the exchange of their health information as well as the opportunity to track their medical informa- tion through a personal health record. But it begins with the provider community. If you have not yet connected to HASA and would like a demonstration, call (210) 233-7300. ■ 18 | San Antonio MD NEWS ■ MDNEWS.COM