NIHN Connect, A Regional Health Information Exchange

Enhancing patient care by connecting the healthcare community

As a progressive healthcare organization North Idaho Health Network understands the ever-changing healthcare environment and the demands with which physicians are faced. Timely and secure access to key patient health information is vital to the delivery of quality patient care. NIHN Connect powered by MobileMD will improve patient care by empowering North Idaho Health Network member physicians and hospitals to electronically and securely connect and communicate pertinent health information about their patients rapidly.

The NIHN Connect Health Information Exchange (HIE) is available to North Idaho Health Network member physicians and hospitals. NIHN Connect provides real-time access to patient’s lab results, radiology reports and many other important transcribed reports via a secure web-based inbox or through a direct connection to a providers electronic health record system (EHR). Providers can also add to the patient’s HIE electronic health record and see additions made by other practices for your patient.

What is NIHN Connect Health Information Exchange (HIE)?

The NIHN Connect Health Information Exchange securely moves and manages Protected Health Information (PHI). The purpose of this computer network is to give healthcare providers an efficient tool for accessing and distributing information required for patient treatment, payment authorization and practice operations such as reviewing and practice operations such as reviewing results or finding insurance authorization numbers.

What will NIHN Connect do for my practice?

NIHN Connect provides practices two primary capabilities:

Receive clinical results, documents and reports from North Idaho Health Network member physicians, hospitals, and other participating service providers.
Streamline interaction with other members of the healthcare community. NIHN Connect has the chart repository capabilities of an EHR which is populated as information passes through the HIE. In addition to high volume sources like labs, the HIE also allows participating providers to share pertinent information from their practices with other who have authorization for treatment or for use in emergency situations. This provides a more complete clinical picture and lessens the need to send reorder tests that were recently performed.

Does my practice need an Electronic Health Record system (EHR) to participate in NIHN Connect?

No. If you do not use an EHR, you can connect to NIHN Connect via the Internet. Information can be accessed through a secure web portal and printed to be filed into a patient’s paper chart. If you have an EHR that supports obtaining records from external sources, the information in NIHN Connect can be delivered directly into the EHR’s patient’s chart.

What technology does my practices need to get started?

Practices not currently using an EHR will need a standard PC with Microsoft Windows, a current version of Internet Explorer, and a broadband Internet connection. Access to a printer is recommended for printing information to include in a patient’s paper chart. While not required– to convert paper-based records for use in the HIE practices will need a scanner. A scanner with a document feeder is recommended for large paper files. Many copy machines already provide this function.

How much training is required of practice staff to be productive?

Practices currently not using an EHR, will access NIHN Connect through a secure web-based application. Generally, office staff become comfortable with the basic capabilities after about half an hour of training. After using the system for a day, most users will consider themselves proficient.

Practices currently using an EHR, NIHN Connect will be transparent to most users as they will access the information directly through the EHR system. Depending upon the capabilities of the practices EHR system users may be able to send labor and delivery and surgical scheduling documents to a hospital or directly add office-based records to a patient’s HIE electronic health record from the practice EHR.

What information will practices have access to?

The information will include all lab results, radiology reports and most transcribed documents from North Idaho Health Network member physicians and hospitals. These include discharge summaries, histories and physicals, consults, sleep studies, vascular studies, catheterization reports, nuclear medicine tests, operative reports, X-ray reports, MRI reports, CT reports, EKG reports, pathology reports, cardiology reports and more. As participation increases, a wider range of information from many sources will populate the HIE’s electronic health record. Other participating providers will contribute dictated or scanned documents and lab results from their own practice and labs.

Do practices need to have patients sign a release of information if their information will be uploaded to the HIE?

Use of the information obtained from the HIE will be limited to treatment, payment and operations. Under HIPAA these uses do not require patient consent; however, HIPAA does require all patients to be notified of the privacy policies of the practice. Since the HIE functions as a source of patient health information, a practices current privacy notification may cover the HIE.