Alabama Selects Thomson Reuters HIE Advantage™ for Statewide Health Information Exchange

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Nov 11, 2011, 11:28 ET

ANN ARBOR, Mich., Nov. 11, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Alabama Medicaid and the State of Alabama are partnering with the Healthcare business of Thomson Reuters to build the infrastructure for a statewide health information exchange (HIE) that will improve the quality of care while controlling costs.

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The partnership is designed to transform months of detailed planning by a diverse group of stakeholders into functional, user-friendly design for the exchange, known as One Health Record®.

One Health Record® will securely capture real-time clinical and administrative data from electronic medical records, health care claims, and other sources and provide clinicians with comprehensive patient histories at the point of care so they can make better-informed medical decisions.

The statewide information exchange can improve the coordination of care, improve clinical outcomes, reduce unnecessary and redundant diagnostic tests, create a less fragmented clinical and administrative workflow, and reduce costs. Participation in the exchange helps providers earn federal meaningful use incentives.

"The state of Alabama is clearly committed to the creation of a robust HIE that will help practitioners deliver high quality, cost-effective care," said Jon Newpol, executive vice president for the Healthcare business of Thomson Reuters. "And we are committed to supporting that vision and achieving an aggressive, accelerated implementation schedule."

The exchange will feature fully compliant interoperability standards, use Local Health Information Organizations as gateways connecting providers with the system, and be pre-populated with Medicaid claims data and clinical data from pilot hospitals and physician practices.

"We are pleased to start building the infrastructure for a comprehensive and sustainable health information exchange for Alabama," said Alabama HIT Coordinator Dan Roach III, MD. "Thomson Reuters was selected after a rigorous evaluation process due to its experience, quick implementation, and sophisticated analytic capabilities."

HIE Advantage is powered by CareEvolution's HIEBus™, a comprehensive suite of interoperability solutions. Thomson Reuters and CareEvolution have worked with statewide exchanges, Medicaid agencies, hospital associations and medical societies, health systems, and integrated delivery networks on a variety of successful projects. In total, the platform currently:

Connects 288 hospitals, 1,364 physician practices, and 71 free clinics and home care agencies.
Contains interoperable patient records for 18.1 million patients.
Is accessed by 30,200 users for a variety of patient queries and care coordination functions.

For more information about Thomson Reuters HIE Advantage, visit http://healthcare.thomsonreuters.com/hie/. For more information about One Health Record®, visit http://onehealthrecord.alabama.gov/

About Thomson Reuters

Thomson Reuters is the world's leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals. We combine industry expertise with innovative technology to deliver critical information to leading decision makers in the financial, legal, tax and accounting, healthcare and science and media markets, powered by the world's most trusted news organization. With headquarters in New York and major operations in London and Eagan, Minnesota, Thomson Reuters employs more than 55,000 people and operates in over 100 countries. For more information, go to www.thomsonreuters.com.

About Alabama Medicaid

The Alabama Medicaid Agency manages and administers the state's Medicaid program in order to fund medical and long-term care services for low-income pregnant women, children, certain people on Medicare, disabled individuals and nursing home residents. Assisting nearly 1 million eligible recipients annually, or about 20 percent of Alabama's population, the Agency is actively involved in health information technology development and quality improvement initiatives in order to improve patient health outcomes, to control and reduce costs, and simplify the way Medicaid does business. For more information, go to www.medicaid.alabama.gov

About CareEvolution, Inc.

CareEvolution is a leading provider of secure interoperability solutions. Its core offering, HIEBus™, is a proven, comprehensive suite of SOA technology solutions for healthcare interoperability. Standards-based core network services and certified web-based applications enable healthcare providers, regional exchange initiatives, and health plans to implement patient-centric quality and efficiency initiatives across the care continuum. A suite of optional applications leverage the comprehensive longitudinal patient health information in HIEBus™ to drive clinical integration, care coordination, real time dashboards, medication reconciliation, disease surveillance, advanced analytics, and multi-center observational data research. For more information, go to http://careevolution.com/

SOURCE Thomson Reuters