How Your Lab Can Leverage HIEs, Lab Hubs, and LOINC to Win New Business and
Advance “Meaningful Use” of Client-Physicians
Order LIVE Recording for your team!
YOUR PRESENTERS:
Charles Halfpenny, CTO and Founder, Halfpenny Technologies, Inc.
Jim Whitehurst,VP Sales, Halfpenny Technologies, Inc.
Todd Bibler, Vice President of IT, MEDLAB
THE DARK REPORT (Moderator)
LIVE Recordings – ORDER NOW!
Few clinical labs and pathology groups are prepared for the transformation of healthcare informatics that is under way in the United States. Failure to respond to these developments can mean the loss of profitable clients for the lab.
But there’s also good news. Labs that step up with effective connectivity solutions will generate new business as physicians adopt EHR (electronic health record) systems and more HIEs (health information exchanges) become a daily fact of life in city after city.
You can also include health insurers in this connectivity trend as well. Payers now want laboratory test data because they are building their own patient portals to gain competitive advantage over other insurers. And they’re using lab-test data to populate the electronic health records they maintain on beneficiaries.
This creates an opportunity for independent labs and hospital lab outreach programs to leverage transmission of lab-test data to health insurers with more lucrative managed care contracts.
“For successful clinical labs and pathology groups, ‘connectivity’ is now the core element of the lab informatics strategy,” says Charles Halfpenny, CTO and Founder of Halfpenny Technologies, Inc.,. “It’s essential that every laboratory be able to connect its LIS (laboratory information system) to all the players-including office-based physicians using EHRs, HIEs in their region, or health insurance plans.”
But connectivity doesn’t come cheap. Labs building direct LIS-to-EMR interfaces one by one to satisfy their office-based physicians know how expensive and time consuming it can be. Which is why new approaches that incorporate lab hubs and LOINC are becoming popular connectivity solutions for labs.
To help your lab develop its lab informatics and connectivity strategy, The Dark Report and Dark Daily asked Halfpenny to participate in a special audio conference “How Your Lab Can Leverage HIEs, Lab Hubs, and LOINC to Win New Business and Advance ‘Meaningful Use’ of Client-Physicians,” held on Tuesday, March 27, 2012.
You’ll learn new ways to connect your LIS
- To physicians’ EHRs.
- To HIEs in your community.
- To all your important payers.
You’ll also be introduced to new connectivity options that can save your lab considerable money when interfacing and connecting with clients.
“Advances in information technology now give clinical labs and pathology groups new options for connecting their LISs to all the players in the healthcare continuum,” noted Halfpenny. “For example, lab hubs provide a single interface solution that allows labs to electronically accept lab orders and transmit results to any physician’s EHR that’s also connected to the lab hub. You’ll learn about the benefits and drawbacks of lab hubs during our presentation.”
Of course, “meaningful use” (MU) will be front and center during the audio conference. Lab connectivity solutions must serve the meaningful use needs of physicians as they adopt EHR systems. Among other things, MU mandates the use of computerized provider order entry (CPOE) and the incorporation of results as discrete data, but providers and labs face significant hurdles in achieving this kind of connectivity.
You’ll hear about the issues associated with MU and how to solve them in ways that will satisfy your client physicians.
Similarly, in theory, HIEs are a great vehicle for helping labs deliver results to EHRs. In practice, most HIEs rely on passive data handling, struggle to accommodate the demands of stakeholders and sustain themselves economically. You’ll want to understand the most effective ways that your laboratory can support HIEs. Lab hubs and LOINC are part of these solutions.
While HITECH was built on standards that ensure interoperability and data sharing, some aspects of the healthcare continuum weren’t initially addressed as completely as others. One of the most notable deficiencies is the ability of HIEs to support and facilitate lab-results integration within physician EHR systems. While accurate and accessible health data is key to the success of any healthcare initiative, many of the HIE systems already in use, and even the ones being implemented, can’t produce discrete, normalized data needed for effective quality and outcome measurements.
To provide you with practical insights and proven steps your lab can take to succeed with its connectivity strategy, you’ll hear an actual case study by MEDLAB, one of the country’s largest regional independent laboratories. Todd Bibler, MEDLAB’s Vice President of IT, will share lessons learned as his clinical lab responded to the connectivity needs of physicians, HIEs, and payers in his region.
You’ll get the inside scoop on how your lab can leverage HIEs, lab hubs, and LOINC to win new business and retain existing clients by advancing meaningful use for physicians. Bibler will discuss how MEDLAB used cloud-based architecture to shorten the time required to deliver working LIS-to-EHR interfaces.
Another issue that laboratories must confront as physicians move to Stage 2 of meaningful use is that a new standard (HL7 2.5.1) for reporting lab results will be enforced. This uses LOINC codes for all results with the goal of providing a seamless integration of those results within EHRs.
Lab hubs have significant advantages over do-it-yourself point-to-point interface. Your lab can achieve physician EHR integration more quickly and position itself to take advantage of HIE capabilities as they become available. You’ll learn why these hubs provide capabilities that aren’t yet optimized in your EHR and/or LIS-and how this value-added functionality allows for normalization of data essential for decision support and effective reporting. You’ll get better quality data in your EHR which in turn will provide better data to your HIE. You’ll learn about the benefits of addressing LOINC early in the process. Not only can it provide a competitive advantage, implementation of LOINC coding can position your lab to meet the increasing clinical data-reporting requirements that payers are imposing.
Whether you’re lab director, sales director, CIO, CTO, or IT manager for an independent clinical lab or a hospital with a lab-outreach program, this is one session you won’t want to miss.
Register today to guarantee your place at this essential learning session. And remember that your entire management team can learn and participate when you register.
THE DARK REPORT AUDIO CONFERENCE AT A GLANCE
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For one low price—just $245)—you and your entire team can take part in this fast-paced, insightful audio conference. Best of all, you’ll be able to connect personally with our speakers when we open up the phone lines for live Q&A.
Here’s just some of what you’ll learn during this in-depth 90-minute conference:
- The challenges and deficiencies of lab-data interoperability in the HITECH era as they relate to ambulatory EHRs and LIMS.
- Recognizing the power of meaningful use (MU) as a driver for adoption, collaboration, and innovation.
oUnderstanding the implications of the ONC’s LRI standard. - How to bring multiple competing EHR vendors to collaborate.
- How the role of a lab hub compares to that of an HIE.
- Current status of HIE capabilities and how they relate to lab orders and results.
- The advantages that an HIE can provide your lab.
- How participation in a lab hub could benefit your lab’s sales efforts.
- Potential scale-up feasibility and secondary uses of lab hubs.
- The benefits of mapping your test catalog to LOINC.
- How to use LOINC coding in results even though current laboratory information systems don’t support it.
- The definition of an ONC LRI and what it means to your lab.
…and much more!
How to Order:
1. Online
2. Call toll free: 800-560-6363.
Your audio conference order includes:
- Downloadable PowerPoint presentations from our speakers
- A full transcript emailed to you soon after the conference
ORDER Now! Or for more information, call us toll-free at 800-560-6363.
ACCENT® Continuing Education Credit
The American Association of Clinical Chemistry (AACC) designates this program for a maximum of 1.5 ACCENT® credit hours towards the AACC Clinical Chemist’s Recognition Award. AACC is an approved provider of continuing education for clinical laboratory scientists in the states of California, Florida, Louisiana, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Rhode Island, and West Virginia.
