Hixny is proud to welcome PVA Health Center to the ever-growing list of providers sharing valuable patient data through the region’s health information exchange.
The first employee health center to join Hixny, PVA Health Center provides free primary and urgent care to about 300 employees of Precision Valve & Automation and their families. Based in Cohoes, the global company manufactures coatings and fluid processing systems for a wide range of industries.
Brittany Fitzmaurice, a nurse practitioner and the primary provider in the health center, said the decision to connect followed a visit from CDPHP CEO John Bennett, MD, who is Hixny’s former chairman of the board.
“Enrolling in Hixny allows not only for better access to information from my end,” Fitzmaurice said, “but also for better access to our patients’ information on the part of other Hixny participants—and for overall collaborative, patient-centered care.”
Fitzmaurice explained that, previously, the clinic wasn’t sharing its information with any external organizations because it didn’t even need to bill its patients. Now, using Hixny daily has changed her work flow “immensely.”
Most of her patients are walk-ins, so when she greets them, she immediately tells them about Hixny and the role it plays in the healthcare community—and she asks them to sign the consent form. So far, 100 percent of her patients have given their consent to share and access their records.
Immediately, Fitzmaurice accesses the patient’s Hixny record, called a Continuity-of-Care Document (CCD). She performs her examination while the record is downloading to her computer. Then, she reviews the CCD and discusses any relevant findings with the patient. She also adds any information from the visit to the patient’s Hixny record.
Hixny is already improving care for Fitzmaurice’s patients. It’s also increasing efficiency by preventing the duplication of expensive lab tests and providing diagnostic information that she otherwise wouldn’t be able to consider in providing care.
One patient was diagnosed with pre-glaucoma during an earlier visit with an ophthalmologist and needed to have an eye exam every six months.
“Not only was the patient unaware of this, but as the provider, I didn’t have this information in my own records,” Fitzmaurice said. “I was able to take the information from Hixny, discuss it with the patient and ensure that he had proper screening and appointments set up for the future.”
Fitzmaurice believes that within a few months, all of her patients will have had their first visit since PVA connected to Hixny and will have signed the consent form.
“I will be able to better appreciate all that Hixny has to offer our practice,” she said.
Hixny, a not-for-profit healthcare collaborative, is a national leader in population health management support. Hixny utilizes secure technology to provide individuals, healthcare providers, payers and public health entities with the ability to share and use real-time electronic health records. This coordination of data enhances care for more than 1.7 million people in New York’s Capital District, Northern New York and the Mohawk Valley.
