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OPPORTUNITIES FOR PHYSICIANS TO IMPROVE ACCESS AND SHARING OF HEALTH DATA
Stephanie Pugliese, Director of the Office of eHealth Innovation
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INNOVATION SUMMIT, JULY 21-22:
Hosted annually in partnership by Prime Health and the OeHI, the Innovation Summit connects innovators and health care leaders from a variety of backgrounds, including federal and state leadership, urban and rural health systems, investors, funders, entrepreneurs, technologists, and more. Go to www.
primehealthco.com/innovation-summit
to register for this exciting event!
S-HIE:
A major initiative working toward this vision is the development of a SocialHealth Information Exchange (S-HIE) infrastructure, defined as a vendor-agnostic flexible infrastructure that supports coordinated whole-person care across the physical, social and behavioral health domains.
S-HIE is an innovative model meant to include the social determinants of health in a person’s primary care. Through this model, when an individual shares their social needs with their physician, the provider can make a referral directly to a social program in the community. To connect patients to social services from a health care setting, multiple steps are required: screening and assessing for a need, finding a program in the community, referring and connecting the individual to the program, and confirming and recording the referral result (known as closing the loop). Each step presents an opportunity for technical solutions, from electronic screening tools to resource databases. This will allow providers to use the tools that are most useful in supporting their patients, while still exchanging relevant data across health and social systems. This data-driven infrastructure will reduce administrative burden and promote efficiencies across systems, paving the way for improvements in health equity. OeHI plans to begin the process for building this statewide solution in Fall 2022, and welcomes input and partnership of members of the health care community.
GRANT OPPORTUNITY:
OeHI is working with state and community partners to offer grant and funding opportunities in support of increased broadband connectivity, technical infrastructure, and connection to the state health information exchange network. Colorado House Bill 21-1289 appropriated monies to increase access to broadband services for providers, non-profits, correctional facilities and county jails, and other telehealth service providers who lack quality internet access and devices for the delivery of telehealth visits. Eligible applicants that receive this grant shall use the funds to meet the telehealth delivery needs of its patients, providers and other staff. The Request for Applications (RFA) is currently open through June 20, with awards being made in August 2022.
In November 2021, the Colorado Office of eHealth Innovation (OeHI) and eHealth Commission released the 2021 Colorado Health Information Technology (IT) Roadmap, the state’s health information technology strategy. The Roadmap addresses the evolving needs of health IT to support health and behavioral health care providers and community organizations supporting whole-person care. The Roadmap reflects input from stakeholders statewide who expressed a need for more streamlined technology infrastructure to provide accessible patient records and minimize time spent on data entry and administrative burden.
The Roadmap includes the following opportunities for physicians and health IT enthusiasts to improve access and sharing of health data, develop recommendations for more coordinated policy, and advance digital health equity.
SOCIAL-HEALTH INFORMATION EXCHANGE SOCIAL SERVICES
For more information on applying, please visit the ColoradoVSS website (https://
codpa-vss.cloud.cgifederal.com/
webapp/PRDVSS2X1/AltSelfService); click the Public Access button on the left, and type HB21-1289 Project Broadband Grant into the keyword search. Submission instructions can be found on page 10 of the RFA.
Go to www.oehi.colorado.gov to learn more about Colorado’s health IT efforts and how to get involved or contact Stephanie Pugliese, Director of the Office of eHealth Innovation, Stephanie.Pugliese@state.co.us, for more information. ■
