New West Physicians to use HIE to see ‘big picture’ in patient care

New West Physicians, a Denver metro region practice soon will go live on the Colorado Regional Health Information Organization.

The multispecialty group practice operates 20 primary care offices with more than 125 doctors in the Denver region, along with advanced practice clinicians and specialists.

The decision to join the health data exchange, known as CORHIO, will give the practice secure access to information that includes lab results, updated patient records and demographic information, among other data types.

New West Physician executives say the practice wants to ensure that every care provider in a patient’s chain of care has consistent, current and secure information. The practice also seeks improved patient outcomes by providing fast and secure communication with other providers.

“With access to the CORHIO exchange, we’ll see the big picture with our patients,” says Melissa Helms, MD, a practicing physician and chief health information officer at the practice. “Patients won’t have to worry about remembering every detail for a primary care visit because their doctors will have all the information they need.”

Other recent contracts include:

• Curahealth Hospitals in Garland, Texas, a post-acute care firm with facilities in seven states, has selected the Thrive EHR of Evident, a subsidiary of CPSI. A decision to add an inpatient rehabilitation facility led Curahealth to start a vendor selection process. The company expects a go-live in early 2019.

• Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center has gone live on the latest version of an enterprise imaging platform from Agfa Healthcare. The vendor’s picture archiving and communication system also was part of a first phase of imaging that will include two more phases.

• Radiology Associates in Little Rock, Ark., is live on the Intelerad Diagnostic Viewer, called Inteleviewer, to enhance the existing PACS infrastructure, and also has chosen the Clario SmartWorklist product that has an assignment engine and handles auto routing that ensures images are available when radiologists need them.

• The radiology department at University of Utah Health is using the Philips Illumeo imaging and informatics technology to intelligently interact with imaging data. Combined with analytics, the product augments a radiologist’s routine activities to optimize workflow and enhance care consistency.