CHICAGO (20 May 2008) – Initiate Systems, Inc., a leader in master data management (MDM) and enterprise master person index (EMPI) solutions, today introduced the Initiate® Health Information Exchange for Hospitals and Integrated Delivery Networks (IDNs) solution, designed to serve as a foundation for connecting data within and between healthcare networks. With this foundation in place, healthcare organizations will be able to share patient and provider data within and across their ecosystem in order to support more accurate, consolidated views.

The Initiate Health Information Exchange solution indexes patient records from multiple disparate sources across the environment, enabling strategic initiatives like electronic health records (EHR) and clinical portals, while helping to improve efficiencies, increase patient and provider satisfaction, reduce errors that result from poor data quality, and create an interoperable environment that allows organizations to better serve their communities. It can also help healthcare organizations save millions of dollars in administrative costs.

“The Initiate Health Information Exchange solution, as the name implies, is the convergence of two very broad concepts within the healthcare ecosystem,” said Lorraine Fernandes, vice president, healthcare industry ambassador, Initiate Systems.

‘Health Information,’ Fernandes explained, refers to all types of data that a hospital or IDN might wish to exchange, from clinical to financial to administrative data. The data might be rendered in a standard format (like HL7) or it might be unstructured data. ‘Exchange’ refers to the ability to send and receive that data with another organization or with other departments or systems within the same organization.

“Health information exchange within and among healthcare organizations is one of the greatest challenges IDNs, regional health organizations (RHIOs) and payers face,” Fernandes said. “Providing a connection between the vast amount of data that exists in silos – and serving as a foundation for successful data exchange – is precisely the challenge we’re helping our customers solve.”

The Initiate® Health Information Exchange solution can help hospitals and IDNs:

• Realize the benefits of health information exchange (HIE) by serving as a foundational component of clinical portal, integration and EHR implementations. The Initiate Health Information Exchange solution helps increase accuracy in the way clinical results are distributed to the greater provider community.
  
• Share patient information – demographic, registration and insurance information – between hospitals, clinics and health plans, so patients only need to submit information once
  
• Enhance the quality of patient information by identifying and linking records from multiple, disparate sources across the exchange environment

“There is increasing pressure on Care Delivery Organizations (CDOs) to keep up with physician and patient demands,” said Kristen Wilson-Jones, vice president, Data and Online Services, Sutter Health. “Leading hospitals are starting to see the creation of a proprietary HIE as a way to keep up with that demand and, in turn, increase brand loyalty among referring physicians and patients. The Initiate HIE has been an integral component in Sutter’s ability to deliver in this competitive healthcare environment.”

Initiate HIE Technology and Partners

Initiate Health Information Exchange for Hospitals and IDNs is based on Initiate Master Data Service™ technology – a comprehensive master data platform that provides identity matching and management, data modeling, information quality management, data sharing, relationship and hierarchy management, and multi-lingual integration and synchronization capabilities. Working within the existing HIE environment, the technology provides more confidence in the accuracy and integrity of a health organization’s clinical and administrative records, and can help hospitals and IDNs promote patient and provider satisfaction.

Partners such as AGFA HealthCare, Allscripts, Carefx, Covisint, Healthvision, Wellogic and others integrate with Initiate Systems to enable accurate patient and provider identification across EMR integration, clinical portals and other applications within the exchange ecosystem. IBM, Intel Corporation and Oracle, in collaboration with Initiate Systems, have each created HIE frameworks or bundled solutions that leverage Initiate Systems technology to provide comprehensive information about the right patient at the point of care.