OREANDA-NEWS. January 22, 2013. HealthEast Care System (HealthEast), a community-focused, non-profit health care organization with four hospitals, 667 staffed beds and 14 primary care clinics, has chosen RelayHealth for enterprise HIE (health information exchange) to coordinate and deliver quality patient care among its 30 health care facilities and its affiliated providers. The RelayHealth HIE platform will enable the aggregation of patient data across electronic health record (EHR) systems, reported the press-centre of McKesson.

“With many of our meaningful use components in place, our HIE steering committee of physicians and administrators began looking for a solution with a centralized data model that aggregates clinical data at the point of care,” said Brian D. Patty, MD, Chief Medical Informatics Officer (CMIO), HealthEast. “RelayHealth meets our criteria of enabling CCD data exchange and integrating diverse EHR systems to provide the ideal user experience for our employed and affiliated physicians.”

HealthEast, a Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota-based health care facility, chose to establish a private HIE versus relying on a state infrastructure given the critical nature of collaboration to their internal strategic objectives. Dr. Patty further explained that the HealthEast HIE steering committee also has future plans to extend their HIE to other area health care facilities.

“Providers like HealthEast are preparing to meet challenges such as emerging payment models and effective care coordination both in and out of their network,” said Jeff Felton, president, RelayHealth. “Our partnership with HealthEast will help them collaborate with physicians that run a wide range of vendor systems for a robustly populated longitudinal patient record that will help streamline processes, provide actionable data to make it easier for them to coordinate care for their patients, and ultimately, better manage risk across patient populations.”

RelayHealth enterprise health information exchange helps health systems, physicians and other providers securely exchange health information for better care coordination, well-documented transitions of care, and enhanced patient-provider communication. The ultimate goal is to provide patients and physicians access to the right health data at the right time in the right place.

About HealthEast Care System
HealthEast Care System is a community-focused, non-profit health care organization that provides innovative technology, compassionate care and a full spectrum of family health services. HealthEast includes Bethesda Hospital, St. John's Hospital, St. Joseph's Hospital and Woodwinds Health Campus as well as outpatient services, clinics, home care and medical transportation services.

Practicing financial responsibility, HealthEast is the largest, locally-owned health care organization in the Twin Cities’ East Metro with 7,300 employees, 1,200 volunteers and 1,500 physicians on staff.

About RelayHealth
RelayHealth, McKesson’s connectivity business, enables the secure exchange of clinical, financial and administrative information between patients, providers, payers, pharmacies, pharmaceutical manufacturers and government agencies. RelayHealth processes nearly 16 billion healthcare transactions annually by integrating the delivery of high-quality care and improving the financial outcomes for its customers. For more information, call 888.743.8735, or visit our Web site at www.RelayHealth.com. Follow us on Twitter (@RelayHealth) or visit the RelayHealth Facebook page.