HIXNY Connects with athenahealth to Provide Access to Community Health Record on InterSystems HealthShare Platform

InterSystems Corporation announced that Healthcare Information Xchange of New York (HIXNY) has connected its health information exchange (HIE) with the cloud-based electronic health record (EHR) from athenahealth, Inc. This landmark connection will enable physicians using athenahealth's EHR service, athenaClinicals®, to efficiently access their patients' community health records supplied by HIXNY's HIE, which is built on InterSystems HealthShare™. The groundbreaking initiative continues HIXNY's focus on sharing and delivering patient data in a secure manner while improving care coordination across Capital Region and Northern New York.

"Physician practices that choose athenahealth as their EHR vendor will have proven interoperability with HIXNY's HIE," said Scott Momrow, Vice President of HIXNY. "Many healthcare stakeholders today are already sharing information via the HIXNY HIE. What's different about the approach with athenahealth is that their users will now have a bi-directional connection making it easier for providers to share their information with other participating providers as well as making it much faster for providers to access their patients' aggregated community health information right in their native EHR system. It is a seamless process that can bring value to health care providers while also improving workflows and efficiency in a practice of any size."

As an HIE, HIXNY provides the means for health care providers to share records between system so that patients' clinical information is safely and securely exchanged from provider office to provider office as well as hospitals and other stakeholders to improve the quality of care and reduce health care costs. "InterSystems has been a key partner in this connected care initiative," noted Momrow. "The HealthShare strategic informatics platform dramatically speeds up delivery of healthcare information for physicians who utilize HIEs."

HIXNY continues to work with several EHR system vendors to create similar proven connections for physicians and provider offices throughout the area served by HIXNY. With this approach, the EHR vendors typically handle the training and installation of the program while HIXNY will assist practices with the patient consent process.

"We want to be able to provide those participating with HIXNY multiple options for accessing our services. We're confident that our approach with athenahealth will result in other EHR vendors establishing similar interoperable connections in the near future," Momrow said.

"Reliance on HealthShare to add value to EHR systems by enabling enhanced EHR interoperability is a growing global trend in connected health care," said Dominick Bizzarro, InterSystems HealthShare Business Manager. "HIXNY's success in implementing EHR integration across its network illustrates the benefits that these initiatives can deliver to health care providers."