Hixny is pleased to announce the award of a grant from New York state for a project called Wire Once that will significantly accelerate the quality, connectivity and interoperability of the State Health Information Network of New York (SHIN-NY), its Qualified Entities (QEs) and participating providers. Patients will also benefit from this project by having a higher-degree of data completeness for their health care records and greater care continuity.
Wire Once will have an important impact on the future of SHIN-NY in several ways, notably:
- Lowering connectivity costs and saving SHIN-NY and its QEs significant cost savings.
- Eliminating unnecessary connections by creating a scalable, repeatable technology.
About Wire Once
Wire Once’s primary goal is to advance data quality and completeness for vendors who need to connect to multiples QEs. Wire Once will initially focus on three Article 28 national dialysis providers – DCI, Rogosin and Fresenius. These providers have a combined 73 New York clinics, representing many of New York state’s most costly and sick patients and communities.
Given the population the dialysis providers serve, and their reach, they are a good starting point to create the technology to lower connectivity costs and eliminate unnecessary connections. Upon creating, testing and refining the technology with these providers, Hixny will be able to scale the technology to other vendors needing to economically and efficiently connect to multiple QEs.
Hixny is always working to ensure that our endeavors on behalf of QEs, providers and patients are as efficient and effective as possible and have a broad reach in terms of their benefits. Wire Once is no exception and will be a critical project in reaching the long-term goals of SHIN-NY.
Single Connection Lowers Costs and Eliminates Multiple Connections
In this project, a single connection will be established that allows the dialysis providers to connect their electronic health records (EHRs) to multiple health information networks (HIEs).
As mentioned, the value of creating this EHR gateway will extend well beyond the initial Wire Once project’s dialysis providers. The technology will enable any healthcare vendor the ability to connect to multiples QEs.
How it Works Today Without Wire Once: Multiple Connections – Diagram 1
How It Will Work With Wire Once: Connect Once Through the Wire Once Gateway – Diagram 2
*FHIR + API only meant to depict the possibilities for future connections.
A Single Connection for Providers Spanning State Regions
While Hixny health IT technologies move patient data across QEs, they do not support the data contribution needs of providers spanning across the state’s regions. Providers must either:
- Connect to multiple QEs; or,
- Contribute data from all locations to a single QE.
The second option does allow for a one-time connection to the SHIN-NY to contribute all data. However, connecting this way can be costly because the QE must store data that is not associated with facilities in its region in its HIE and master patient index (MPI). This scenario also creates data overlaps in the statewide master patient index (sMPI). Additionally, it limits other QEs in using the data to provide value-added services such as smart alerts, analytics and reporting, as the data is not resident in their local HIE.
To solve this cumbersome and costly challenge, Hixny’s Wire Once project will create a system – expanding on its current system capabilities – to create an EHR gateway to connect once for a health care provider organization. While the Wire Once grant will focus on the Article 28 national dialysis providers, the system capabilities and benefits will extend well beyond the grant and its initial providers to offer the same connectivity to additional providers.
Leveraging Hixny’s Existing Infrastructure and Aligning with SHIN-NY Standards
For Wire Once, Hixny will leverage SHIN-NY technical standards and existing infrastructure such as the sMPI and the common clinical data set to build upon the existing SHIN-NY technology investments.
Leveraging these existing resources will allow Hixxy to:
- Establish a framework to distribute data from large statewide providers to multiple QEs.
- Enable data retrieval using the provider EHR which is the preferred method of data retrieval for most providers due to workflow integration.
- Address the delivery of admission and discharge alerts and the collection and transmission of consent electronically.
Far-Reaching Benefits of Wire Once
There are many far-reaching benefits to the Wire Once project to the New York health care community and its consumers (patients):
- Creating a foundation for achieving a single simultaneous connection to multiple SHINY-NY QEs.
- Recognizing a long-term cost savings by creating a scalable system solution that can be replicated for other providers and QEs with little to no additional costs.
- Further expanding the system solution created through Wire Once in future to allow health care consumers (patients) to submit data from non-clinical settings.
- Improving upon SHIN-NY data accuracy and completeness.
- Increasing SHIN-NY dashboard metrics for participation, data contribution for Article 28 providers.
Measuring Wire Once Success
As an innovator in health IT and regional HIEs, Hixny understands the value and importance of tracking our outcomes and measuring our success. To that end, the following are our metrics for success:
- Increasing the availability of high quality data on some of New York’s most costly patients, which will result in a higher coordination of care and lowered costs.
- Growing the number of SHIN-NY QEs that participate in the project and accept the data from one or both dialysis providers and additional providers/vendors moving forward.
- Demonstrating the ability of the SHIN-NY to fully establish connectivity options that fulfill the Wire Once vision of the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) and Governor’s Office.
Wire Once; Benefit Many
Wire Once is a pivotal project in advancing data quality and completeness and lowering connectivity costs by establishing a single gateway for connectivity. Leveraging the system capabilities and benefits created through Wire Once is a critical and important milestone that supports the broader goals of SHIN-NY. The wide-reaching project vision will benefit not only the SHIN-NY and its immediate and future goals, but its QEs, providers and – ultimately – health care consumers with better care and lower costs.
Text version of diagram Without Wire Once
Organizational diagram for Without Wire Once – There are two vendors, Vendor 1 and Vendor 2. There are five Qualified Entities; QE1, QE2, QE3, QE4 and QE5. Each vendor has five connections, one to each individual Qualified Entity (QE).
Text version of diagram With Wire Once
Organizational diagram for With Wire Once
There are two vendors, Vendor 1 and Vendor 2. There are five Qualified Entities; QE1, QE2, QE3, QE4 and QE5. There are 2 additional nodes labeled FHIR and API.
Each vendor has one connection to the Wire Once Gateway. The Wire Once Gateway has five connections, one to each Qualified Entity. The Wire Once Gateway has 2 additional connections that are meant to depict the possibilities for future connections, FHIR and API.
