• Launch of Louisiana's Health Information Exchange Marks Milestone
• Louisiana Health Information Exchange Moving Forward
• LAPOST: An Achievement for Providers, Patients and Families

Launch of Louisiana's Health Information Exchange Marks Milestone

When the Louisiana Health Information Exchange (LaHIE) was launched November 4 at the state conference for the Louisiana Chapter of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, it marked a milestone toward establishing a web-based medical records exchange that is designed to allow physicians, hospitals, pharmacists, and other health care providers to deliver coordinated, cost-effective patient care across the state.

Joining state health officials and industry leaders for the LaHIE launch and demonstration held in Kenner were David Callecod, Chief Executive Officer of Lafayette General Medical Center, and Jared Lormand, Vice President of Information Technology and Chief Information Officer at Opelousas General Health System, whose hospitals in the Acadiana region are piloting LaHIE.

LaHIE is the mechanism that will allow for the secure exchange of health information among authorized providers and across Louisiana’s health care system to help improve patient safety, quality of care, and health outcomes. LaHIE is an initiative of the Louisiana Health Care Quality Forum. The Forum is dedicated to advancing evidence-based, collaborative initiatives to improve the health of Louisiana residents and serves as the state-designated, neutral entity to build and support a health information exchange in the state.

The Forum was created in response to recommendations made by the Louisiana Health Care Redesign Collaborative in 2006. This group was tasked with addressing the massive health care issues that existed in the state following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. One of the many casualties left behind by this powerful one-two punch was a shattered health care system.

Following Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, the New Orleans region faced a multitude of challenges in rebuilding its health care infrastructure and reconnecting physicians with their patients. Karen B. DeSalvo, MD, MPH, MSc, a founding member and Forum President, has experience dealing directly with post disaster challenges.

“The ability for health care providers to exchange information in a timely way is important in all situations,” noted DeSalvo. “In the face of disaster, it is important for us to know people’s medical information and what kind of medications they have to take. It becomes urgent for us if people need to evacuate. But really it is an everyday solution. It’s a way that if you go to a doctor, the doctor has access to the health information that is important for your care – medications, the last diagnostic or lab test, so that he or she can make decisions and not delay care.”

At the LaHIE launch Callecod said, “We certainly saw the vision of LaHIE and what it can do to improve the health of the community in Acadiana. It was important for us to be a first mover and an early adopter of this technology. And the hope certainly is we see such success in Acadiana that this is replicated and quickly gets rolled out across the state. As we look at interfacing the technologies, one of the things that we all need to think about is meaningful use. Certainly the first step of it is relatively easy because you can control what you do inside your facility, but LaHIE gives you the ability to begin sharing information among providers and hit achieving meaningful use in those next stages.”

When Opelousas General Health System was invited to be a pilot participant, Lormand noted, “We felt it was important to share data with our clinically affiliated hospital, Lafayette General. We are excited about the opportunity to share data between our ED (Emergency Department) facilities so that we can have more timely access to patient diagnostic results and the physicians at each end of the spectrum of care have immediate access to improve their patient care. This is very important, because as more hospitals join this program, the better patient care will be in Louisiana.”

Brenda Ikerd, Forum Health Information Technology Director, described the LaHIE launch as a milestone event that was years in the making. “There has been extensive involvement with many stakeholders, and they are excited that it is now a reality,” she shared. “We are one of the first states in the country to be doing it. The successful exchange between the two pilot hospitals will create secure, real-time access to information for high quality patient care. This launch was the next critical step in Louisiana’s journey to advance health information technology and connectivity.”

According to B. Vindell Washington, MD, MCHM, FACEP, Vice President of Performance Excellence and Technology for the Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System and the Forum’s Chair of the Health Information Technology Committee, the LaHIE launch signals a change in health care. “One of the things missing in health care is this linkage between providers. Health is about providing care across the community. We are not individuals providing individual care at individual hospitals, but the community providing care. Before the Health Information Exchange, we were unable to reach across and find out what care our brethren engaged in these efforts were doing and, therefore, were unable to give the kind of care that was coordinated and reached across the different areas of care provided in the state.”

The Forum selected Orion Health as its primary technology provider. Orion Health is a national leader in state and federally funded HIEs. “It’s extremely gratifying for us at Orion Health to see the Louisiana Health Care Quality Forum’s vision for connected health care become reality,” said Paul Viskovich, President of Orion Health North America. “We are proud to have been such an integral part of the project, bringing the HIE to launch in such a short time frame, and we look forward to seeing the ways in which LaHIE positively impacts the lives of residents and caregivers throughout the state of Louisiana.”

Bruce Greenstein, Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, described the LaHIE launch as “… another feather in our cap in terms of Louisiana’s accelerated pace as being one of the best states in the nation for health information technology. This shows what our true potential is as a state in the world of health care and we can move forward from our low levels of health outcomes today to high levels, and we are showing our potential in what we can do in health information technology.”

Following the pilot program in the Acadiana region, LaHIE will move forward to statewide implementation early this year. Core services available will include a master patient index, provider registry, record locator service, user identity management and authentication, audit trail, and consent management.

From January 2012 to June 2012 additional features will be developed: HIE to HIE transaction exchange; single sign on; direct secure messaging; additional data flowing through HIE (medications, procedures, claims); and facilitation of additional functionality with Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals services (e.g., public health reporting on immunizations, electronic lab reporting, and syndromic surveillance). From July 2012 to December 2012 features to be developed include case management/analytics, patient access to LaHIE, quality reporting capabilities, and interstate exchange capabilities.

For more information about LaHIE, you can visit the Forum website at www.lhcqf.org or contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .