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Chatham County Safety Net Planning Council  selected Orion Health to build the Chatham County Health Information Exchange to serve the more than 250,000 people in Georgia

Chatham County Safety Net Planning Council (CCSNPC) has selected Orion Health , Inc. to build the Chatham County Health Information Exchange (HIE) Pilot to serve the more than 250,000 people in the Southeast Coastal Georgia County.

Located in Savannah, GA, CCSNPC is charged with assisting the Chatham County Commission in developing a healthcare infrastructure that leverages available resources and maximizes strong local partnerships to improve access to and efficiency of healthcare services. Through increased access to care, enhanced capacity and improved efficiency within the community’s Safety net system, CCSNPC’s goal is addressing the health care needs of the uninsured and underinsured through ongoing collaboration and evaluation to deliver improved patient outcomes. CCSNPC have recognized that a critical piece in achieving these goals is to establish a health information exchange - beginning with a pilot project connecting one major hospital emergency department and one Federally Qualified Health Center in the county. 

Chatham County is one of over 11 HIEs of which Orion Health technology is a large contributing component.

The HIE solution from Orion Health creates an infrastructure that allows for secure electronic exchange of health information among the Chatham County care providers. Orion Health Rhapsody Integration Engine software provides data exchange, messaging and public health reporting from the data store. The Orion Health Concerto Portal provides a web-based portal for Safety Net providers, and others involved in supporting the communities’ healthcare to securely view patient information. Orion Health also engaged with strategic partners Initiate who provided patient identifier and record locator services necessary for data exchange.

The Georgia Department of Community Health selected the CCSNPC HIE as one of three state demonstration projects and the Health Resources and Services Administration has awarded CCSNPC an earmark for equipment and software purchasing.

Paula Reynolds, MD, MPH, CCSNPC’s Executive Director says selecting Orion Health was the obvious choice to help fortify this infrastructure. “CCSNPC membership is committed to looking to improve our infrastructure through technology. After reviewing several other vendor’s products, we saw that Orion Health was able to provide an end-to-end solution to implement a world class, complete HIE infrastructure, scalable to our Pilot Project needs, but capable of expansion to grow with our communities needs. The initial cost of ownership and training available means that we can develop our own IT staff to support and manage the project.”

Paul Viskovich, Orion Health President of North America and EMEA Operations notes Chatham County is one of several HIEs that Orion Health has had the opportunity to help develop over the past year. 

“We have seen incredible success providing community health organizations with a health information infrastructure as good or better as any HIE in the country.”

“By partnering with Initiate Systems on this project we were able to provide Chatham County an HIE that includes e-prescribing and is also conscious of budgetary and resource challenges while being managed by minimal internal resources”, continued Mr. Viskovich.

The Chatham County Safety Net Planning Council is a collaboration consisting of providers, government, representatives, advocates, funders, and consumers. While the initial HIE Pilot Project would serve only Chatham County, CCSNPC’s future aspirations extend to the participation of all regional health care providers including the rest of the Safety Net providers, regional hospitals, private providers and Public Health. Dr. Reynolds adds, “Orion’s solution allows us to extend the opportunity to participate in our system to providers with virtually any of the EMR systems currently available and to be prepared to communicate with other HIE’s which may be developed in other communities in Georgia, including a state-wide HIE.”

Orion Health solutions use standards-based technology to integrate data within a facility and external partners without incurring costly rip and replace approaches. Currently the company helps facilities and healthcare communities that connect 35 million patients with tens of thousands of active users.

Source: Orion Health

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