MedAllies' Holly Miller, MD, MBA, FHIMSS, to Deliver Keynote Address at Delaware Valley HIMSS Meeting

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Jan 17, 2012, 09:36 ET

Miller will present key learnings from MedAllies' Direct HISP Solution that helps providers improve care using diverse EHR systems

FISHKILL, N.Y., Jan. 17, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- By providing vital clinical information to care providers as patients transition across care environments, Direct technology will transform health care delivery resulting in improved quality, decreased costs, increased care efficiency and greater patient satisfaction. That's the message Holly Miller, MD, MBA, FHIMSS, chief medical officer of MedAllies, will deliver in her keynote address at the Delaware Valley Healthcare Information Management System Society Winter Symposium on Jan. 19, 2012.

The Winter Symposium, to be held at the Microsoft Technology Center in Malvern, Penn., focuses on the rapidly changing health information exchange environment in the Delaware Valley and will offer practical insights on the technologies being advanced.

Miller will speak on "Using Direct Health Information Exchange in the Real World." She is uniquely suited to give such an address: Miller herself is a physician, and MedAllies was one of only seven sites to launch a pilot for the Direct Project, a national effort spearheaded by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology to fast-track electronic information exchange.

Each pilot was different; MedAllies' approach advances primary care models that emphasize care coordination and improved care transitions. It developed a simple, secure, scalable, standards-based way for providers to send authenticated, encrypted health information directly to known, trusted recipients via the Internet—an approach that works across diverse EHR vendors.

MedAllies' Direct HISP Solution builds on existing technology to achieve interoperability, with physicians using their current EHR systems. This approach enhances and optimizes the practices' EHR workflows, enabling them to process and integrate information exchanged during patient transitions of care. Providers and patients both benefit, Miller said.

"Direct allows information to flow across disparate EHR systems, in a manner consistent with provider workflows – and in a way that supports patient-centered care. That patient-centeredness is crucial," she explained. "For all its sophistication, Direct is not about technology for its own sake: it's a tool for health care transformation."

MedAllies' Direct is helping revolutionize health care delivery in the Hudson Valley. "Providers here were in the vanguard of EHR adoption; now they are ready to take the next step," she said. "Increasingly, health care providers want interoperability—the ability for information to flow into electronic records in a way that can be integrated into their own systems and actionable--in order to improve transitions of care. Direct provides that." The MedAllies Direct connectivity model supports not only the advanced primary care medical home and accountable care models, but also enhances health care delivery for everyone. "We're talking improved quality, decreased costs and increased efficiency of care," Miller said. "It has the potential to transform the practice of health care."

About Dr. Miller
Holly Miller, MD, MBA, FHIMSS, is the MedAllies physician liaison for all implementation projects and works closely with the team to design a change management program ensuring optimal utilization of the EHR's tools within different practice environments. She is a frequent presenter at national meetings on HIT and PHRs and has been active in health care informatics research. A member of HIMSS since 1999, Miller is now vice-chair. She previously chaired the HIMSS Personal Health Record Steering Committee, and was a physician leader of the HIMSS/AMDIS Physician Community. She is the lead author on a book about PHRs, Personal Health Records, The Essential Missing Element in 21st Century Health Care, published in 2009.

About MedAllies
MedAllies, founded in 2001, has extensive experience with EHR implementations and workflow redesign to improve clinical care. It provides unmatched expertise in health information exchange and Direct services. MedAllies operates the THINC eXchange, an HIE designed to increase the completeness of information at the point of care, improve care coordination and standardize quality and public health reporting in New York's Hudson Valley. MedAllies has provided Direct services since the Direct Project's inception and has several pilot sites in New York State. MedAllies' Direct HISP Solution is a tool to advance primary care models that emphasize care coordination and improved care transitions. To learn more, visit www.medallies.com. Issue briefs—including three on the Direct Project—are available at www.hudsonvalleyinitiative.com/press-kit.html.

SOURCE MedAllies