Regional Health Information Organizations
Urged on by rising health care costs and state and federal mandates and opportunities, regions across the U.S. are being challenged to come together to implement effective Regional Health Information Organizations (RHIOs). Establishing RHIOs that allow easy sharing of health records is critical to improving access, quality, and safety of health care--and stabilizing costs--within our communities. And many RHIOs are under way.

Backed by a broad range of experience in both the health payer market and clinical health care delivery, CTG comprehensively manages and/or supports the initiation and execution of RHIO projects. Our services encompass governance; funding; public relations; constituent group awareness; technical and functional architecture establishment; and technology selection, implementation, and optimization. CTG has robust experience with facilitating broad groups of health care stakeholders that often have competing agendas and priorities, technical architecture planning and design, marketing and communication as well as electronic medical records (EMR) adoption and clinical process reengineering.   

CTG works with our clients to customize an approach to meet their specific objectives. Typical RHIO goals include:

• Manage the formation of a community-wide health information exchange

• Control growth of medical costs for payer and community

• Reduce administrative costs for payer and community

• Coordinate community-wide information gathering, eligibility, benefits, out-of-pocket expenses, and requirements

• Reduce community duplication of infrastructure

• Improve quality of care through shared medical records

• Establish a foundation for P4P (pay for performance) where providers are rewarded for the quality of healthcare services
  

CTG RHIO Approach

Through our RHIO offering, CTG assists both emerging and established RHIOs in expanding their services by externally auditing their processes and clinical information access as required by governing entities, integrating separate systems where applicable, or making recommendations for overall improvements in operational efficiency. We customize the approach to fit each client’s needs. CTG’s RHIO-related services include:

• Strategic planning

• Governance and leadership

• Feasibility studies

• System selection and implementation

• Grant request assistance

• Funding model development

• Electronic medical record and practice management system integration

• Standards, security, and privacy policies

The chart below shows the kind of steps CTG goes through to help its clients select the appropriate technology RHIOs can employ to gather and disseminate data.

• Improving the quality of care through the integration of clinical data and interoperable systems

• Reducing costs through such things as fewer redundant tests, higher generic drug substitution, and reduction of adverse drug events

• Lowering administrative expenses at the payer/hospital/provider level

• Establishing a platform for community best practices

• Driving a meaningful community-wide basis for P4P

• Enabling a coordinated continuum of care for patients

• Including all constituents in a community-wide agenda