Today Governor Gary R. Herbert signed the Utah Healthcare Connectivity Day declaration, celebrating the collaboration of Utah Healthcare providers in the initiation of a secure electronic health information exchange.

This celebration is happening 141 years from the day of historic joining of the transcontinental railroads linking the American people from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans at Promontory Point, Utah.  Utah is pioneering the ability to improve the quality of care by making more complete patient information securely available to authorized providers. This statewide system is called the clinical Health Information Exchange (cHIE).

The cHIE gives providers the capacity to render more informed care and patients have more control over their information.  When patient information is shared electronically, it is more secure.  People who use the healthcare system frequently, such as those with chronic conditions, the elderly and patients who use emergency room services will greatly benefit.

 “Every day, Utah providers make healthcare decisions and they may not have access to complete patient information.  This information is often scattered among different healthcare organizations,” commented Jan Root, PhD, President of UHIN.  Scattered information contributes to medical errors, causes unnecessary or repeated laboratory and radiology tests, reduces the accuracy of diagnoses and wastes providers’ time.”

The Institute of Medicine estimates that medical errors cause up to 98,000 deaths and 1.5 million injuries across the country each year.  In Utah, this means that deaths and injuries from medical errors could be reduced by using this system.

The Utah Health Information Network (UHIN), a Utah not-for-profit company with 17 years of experience in health information exchange, has been chosen to operate the cHIE.

The community’s choice for providing advanced clinical networking solutions for the cHIE project is Axolotl Corporation.  Axolotl is a North-American leader of browser-based products and services for secure heath information exchange and management and is located in San Jose, CA.

UHIN is proud to promote those organizations who have stepped forward to be the initial participants in the clinical Health Information Exchange (listed alphabetically).  

The entities exchanging data are:

Allen Memorial Hospital

Bear River Valley Hospital

Brigham City Community Hospital

Central Utah Clinic

Davis Hospital & Medical Center

Jordan Valley Medical Center

Logan Regional Hospital

Pioneer Valley Hospital (Campus of Jordan Valley Medical Center)

Salt Lake Regional Medical Center

University of Utah Health Care

Utah Department of Health

Sites actively pursuing a connection are:             

Ashley Regional Medical Center

Beaver Valley Hospital

Cache Valley Specialty Hospital

Central Valley Medical Center

Gunnison Valley Hospital

Kane County Hospital

Milford Valley Memorial Hospital

Tanner Clinic

Uintah Basin Medical Center

Organizations collaborating with UHIN are:

Utah Hospital Association

Utah Medical Association

Association of Utah Community Health Centers

Altius

Desert Mutual Benefit Administrators

Educators Mutual Insurance Association

Molina

Public Employees Health Program

Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Utah

SelectHealth

University of Utah Health Plans

Utah Medicaid

Valley Mental Health

Electronic medical records vendors pursuing a connection with the exchange are: