The suite and services will be used by CareSpark to provide interoperability for clinical data exchange among healthcare providers and insurers in the 17 counties of the tri-city region of Johnson City, Kingsport and Bristol in Tennessee and southwest Virginia.
By using Cloverleaf Integration Suite from Quovadx, CareSpark will support HIPAA-compliant clinical data sharing between participating healthcare organizations such as physician offices, hospitals, public health departments, pharmacies, laboratories and imaging centers.
The regional health information organization (RHIO) will support over 1,200 physicians and 18 hospitals, who deliver care to 750,000 people in the region. CareSpark’s network will initially connect healthcare organizations including Mountain States Health Alliance and the Sullivan County Regional Health Department, with 600,000 unique patient records to be included in the data sharing system, beginning in spring 2007.
Broader sharing of clinical data among additional healthcare organizations in the CareSpark region is planned for 2008 and thereafter.
Clinical data sharing has been proven to help improve patient outcomes, said Jerry Rankin, director of health information network initiatives at Quovadx’ integration solutions division. The Appalachian region suffers from serious health disparities in diseases like diabetes and heart disease, so we are pleased to bring our experience in supporting clinical interoperability and RHIO enablement to bear at CareSpark in an effort to assist in the management of these chronic health problems.
