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Health Information Exchange of Montana Expands CareAlign Solution Across Large Geographic Area

Today culminates a long journey of governance structure development, policy and procedure implementation, and technology deployment aimed at sharing health care information to improve care coordination and quality for patients within the Northwest Region of Montana. Health care providers of St. John's Lutheran Hospital, Northwest Community Health Center, Northern Rockies Medical Center, Glacier Community Health Center, Northwest Healthcare (including Kalispell Regional Medical Center), and North Valley Hospital now have a comprehensive view of patient information across the region to make informed decisions about each patient they treat.

"This achievement positions every member of the medical community participating in the HIEM to take the first steps in our efforts to support member efforts to achieve meaningful use criteria outlined by the HITECH section of ARRA," says Kip Smith, executive director of the HIEM. "The infrastructure exercised today will allow the HIEM to support additional functionality and tools to benefit health care providers and patients in the years to come. Our focus in the immediate future will be to foster further penetration within the medical community and nurture adoption within this group of participants."

According to Gary Zegiestowsky, CEO of ICA, "While others in the nation struggle with how they will meet meaningful use criteria, the HIEM is continuing its frontier spirit by pioneering real life efforts to share medical information in a meaningful way. No matter what final direction the government takes in this area, the HIEM will have the tools in place across a broad array of health care providers to meet the challenge. The platform CareAlign provides them will allow for the addition of capabilities such as secure messaging, ambulatory order entry, disease dashboard, and patient portal/PHR integration capabilities."

Zegiestowsky emphasized, in these uncertain times, the need for deploying systems flexible enough to meet evolving regulations and standards. "We've architected the CareAlign solution to meet the newest standards, remembering that the vast majority of systems in place are not capable of complying with them. Our goal is to take what we can get and repurpose the data to meet evolving challenges and requirements."

So far, user satisfaction is high. As John Maher, CEO of Glacier Community Health Center, says, "This system is great! One of my staff reported this morning that they were able to pull down reports from a surgical referral prior to the follow-up visit with our clinic without having to wait for the hospital to send them."

About the Health Information Exchange of Montana (HIEM)

The HIEM includes Glacier Community Health Center and Northern Rockies Medical Center in Cut Bank; Northwest Community Health Center, and St. John's Lutheran Hospital in Libby; St. Luke's Community Hospital in Ronan; North Valley Hospital in Whitefish, and Northwest Healthcare's Kalispell Regional Medical Center in Kalispell, as well as more than a dozen clinics across the region.

About Informatics Corporation of America (ICA)

Informatics Corporation of America (ICA) was created with nationally renowned Vanderbilt Medical Center to take innovative technology developed by Vanderbilt physicians to the broader healthcare market. Today ICA is unmatched in its ability to deliver a cost-effective, proven solution that leverages complete data across clinical settings to aid decision-making and improve patient outcomes. Visit www.icainformatics.com

CPR for Informatics Corporation of America
Jim Stroh, 201-641-1911 x18
jstroh@cpronline.com