Upper Peninsula Health Information Exchange (UPHIE) Finalizes Contract With ICA To Cover One-Third of the State of Michigan
<0> Upper Peninsula Health Care NetworkGary Fullerton, 906-225-7158orDodge Communications for ICAJeff Nessler, 770-576-2573 </0>
ICA (), a leading provider of interoperability technology that enables care management and health information exchange (HIE), announced today that it has signed a contract with the Upper Peninsula Health Information Exchange (UPHIE). The new health information exchange (HIE) is sponsored by the (UPHCN) and will cover approximately one-third of the land mass of Michigan. It will serve approximately 300,000 people in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan with the initial participants being hospitals and ambulatory care centers.
UPHIE will be implementing ICA’s platform, which is the foundation for interoperability between disparate health information systems. This platform also allows for direct messaging, standards-based secure clinical communications and data exchange, including HL7 and continuity of care documents (CCD). UPHIE will also be deploying CareAlign’s clinical portal for use with CareExchange.
David Jahn, president of UPHCN and chief executive officer at , said, “We are excited to have finalized our agreement with ICA and to begin implementing CareAlign CareExchange. CareExchange will enable UPHIE to provide a widely spread, largely rural population in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan with the tools to improve quality of care while protecting privacy, sharing costs among stakeholders, and minimizing barriers to provider participation. In addition, ICA’s broad experience in communications-based governance, as well as its modular approach to the implementation of HIE, will assist us in getting off to a fast start. The aggregation of clinical patient information from our numerous hospitals, and then using that information to provide our physicians with longitudinal health records, will aid in ensuring that vital clinical information is always available when and where it’s needed.”
Paula Johnson, director of Enterprise Business Systems at UPHCN, further explained, “The Upper Peninsula is largely rural in nature and is home to 300,000 residents. The Upper Peninsula has a rich history of collaboration among facilities, physicians, ancillary providers, and payers. The implementation of UPHIE will enable us to better tie together the widespread population, ultimately helping providers improve care coordination and better integrate transitions of care.”
Gary Zegiestowsky, chief executive officer of ICA, added, “CareAlign’s ability to manage populations in large geographical areas will ensure UPHIE’s ability to strengthen care coordination among its numerous hospitals, clinics and other health facilities across a vast area. UPHIE’s goals of improving treatment decisions, avoiding redundant diagnostics and minimizing or eliminating adverse drug reactions will dramatically reduce costs and improve patient care.”
UPHIE covers more than 16,400 square miles and features more than 900 medical and ancillary providers.
The Upper Peninsula Health Care Network (UPHCN) is a corporation of health care organizations formed in 1995 to facilitate access to high-quality health care at a reasonable cost. Together, UPHCN members are continuously working to provide coordinated health care delivery for residents in the Upper Peninsula and surrounding communities through the Upper Peninsula Health Information Exchange (UPHIE). UPHIE is charged to improve the quality, delivery, and efficiency of health care through the collaborative use of information technology and clinical data exchange. UPHIE recently selected ICA to be its HIE vendor and executed documentation for it to become an active, qualified data-sharing organization offering a new level of services to the entire Upper Peninsula via the Michigan Health Information Network (MiHIN) backbone to the rest of Michigan. UPHIE is represented on the MiHIN Board of Directors by Dennis H. Smith and is an officially designated substate HIE in Michigan.
ICA was established to take innovative technology developed by to the broader healthcare market, and now delivers a comprehensive health information exchange (HIE) and care management solution to hospitals, IDNs, communities and states. This patient-centered modular approach offers immediate value and return-on-investment through the delivery of clinical information to the point-of-care, improving quality while reducing costs. The CareAlign® solution suite provides the technology necessary to progressively exchange clinical information, increase care collaboration and manage healthcare risk across the continuum of care with the goal of improving patient outcomes while reducing costs. Visit , and follow us on , , , and .