Capital Area Regional Health Information Organization

We are on the verge of an exciting innovation that could profoundly affect health care in mid-Michigan: the development of a Capital Area Regional Health Information Organization (CARHIO)

Because of its potential impact on health care cost, quality, safety and access, the Capital Area Health Alliance is designing a digital health information strategy and system for the entire Tri-County health care community that will promote the secure sharing of valuable clinical patient information across organizational boundaries.   That process is underway with a CAHA Work Group of physicians, other health care professionals and leaders from Accident Fund of America, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, Community Mental Health, Ingham County Health Department, Ingham County Medical Society, Ingham Regional Medical Center, Lansing Community College, Michigan State University, Physicians Health Plan of Mid-Michigan, and Sparrow Health System.  Dr. Brian McCardel is serving as the Chair of this Work Group that meets monthly.

The proposed CARHIO has the potential of reducing health care costs, enhancing quality, and increasing the effectiveness of providing health care through information technology.  Similar programs in communities such as Cincinnati, Indianapolis, and New York’s Taconic Valley, in varying phases of development, are working to improve patient safety, quality and clinical service efficiencies.  Communities such as South Bend, Indiana, where there is a RHIO that has been operational for five years, have not required participating stakeholders to change their pre-existing clinical information systems to participate.  We believe that the Capital Area is in a unique position to successfully execute this program because of outstanding community resources, the existing multi-organization collaborative provided by CAHA, and substantial consolidation that has already occurred within this heath care market.

We are using the experience and expertise of the CEO of the Michiana Health Information Network in South Bend to help us work through issues that must be considered in a project of this magnitude.  We believe that by learning from the successes of other communities, heeding descriptions about what hasn’t worked, and actively involving all relevant parties in our community, we can design a system that will be acceptable to both patients and providers and be a great asset to the entire community. Additionally, such initiatives have been established as a priority on President Bush’s Health Care agenda.

A core principal of this project is that we will create an entity that, when fully operational, will be self-supporting. This utility will be a sustainable business within which the primary and secondary beneficiaries will be identified and engaged within the organization to support their expense components.

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Additional Resources The Public Health Informatics Institute maintains a list of suggested reading about Health Information Organizations.  The United States Department of Health and Human Services National Coordinator for Health Information Technology is supporting the creation of regional health organizations.  Connecting for Health is a project of the Markle Foundation reducing barriers to community health information exchange. More documents are available here.

What is a RHIO? A RHIO is a technology organization that connects health information from a community.  That way, physicians can have timely, accurate information about most or all aspects of a patients' care.  This can reduce medical errors, save money by reducing uneeded tests and procedures, and improve patient health by improving diagnosis and treatment. The need for RHIOs is clear.  Often patients do not remember the medications they are taking, the tests they have had or what the results were.  One physician may not know everything about what other doctors are doing for the patient.  Because of this physicians may prescribe drugs that patients should not take, and often have to order duplicate tests.  Without knowing everything about a patient's health status a physician can miss an important diagnosis.  RHIO's usually operate by creating secure on-line access to information from medical records either over the internet or through private networks.  Private information is protected and RHIOs comply with HIPAA privacy standards. The business challenge to RHIOs is convincing most or all physicians in a community to participate.  The information in a RHIO is not very valuable if it is not complete.  Hospitals and insurance companies, which can develop a RHIO, need to be convinced that many or most physicians in a community will participate.