NYCLIX Selects FirstGateways To Build Regional Health Information Exchange Infrastructure In New York City
New York,NY - NYCLIX, Inc., a New York City-based regional health information organization (RHIO) whose mission is to establish a clinical data exchange capability in the New York City region to improve the care of New Yorkers, has entered into a contract with First Consulting Group to provide the technical infrastructure for NYCLIX's health information exchange services. FCG's FirstGateways technology will allow clinical data to be exchanged securely among the participating NYCLIX (New York Clinical Information Exchange) provider organizations and used by clinicians at the point of care. NYCLIX includes the largest hospitals in Manhattan and hospitals in Staten Island, Brooklyn, and Queens, a major faculty practice organization, a multi-site Federally Qualified Health Center, and the nation's largest not-for-profit home healthcare provider (see list below).
The initial scope of work will allow physicians in the emergency departments (EDs) of participating NYCLIX organizations to have access to clinical data about the patient from other participating organizations. Studies show that remediable information gaps are present in one-third of ED visits and are more common in sicker patients. NYCLIX participants provide some 840,000 emergency visits annually, as well as 470,000 discharges, 6.8 million outpatient visits, and 5.9 million home visits.
"NYCLIX's vision is to provide a comprehensive set of services that will link patients, hospitals, ambulatory care providers, non-acute facilities, home health care organizations, regional labs, imaging centers and health plans to improve the care of people in New York," said Gilad Kuperman, MD, PhD, Chairman of the NYCLIX Board, and Director of Quality Informatics at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. "The number and density of provider organizations in New York City means that patient data is fragmented. The NYCLIX participants are collaborating to develop a health information exchange infrastructure to improve patient care, public health, emergency response, disease management and other health care processes in New York City."
"After a comprehensive analysis, the FirstGateways product and related services were selected because they provide proven solutions that can support the mandatory requirements of our RHIO, including a federated architecture, where NYCLIX servers will be placed behind the firewalls of each member," said Paul Conocenti, Chair of the NYCLIX Technical Committee and Senior Vice-President, Vice-Dean, and Chief Information Officer at New York University Medical Center. "The FirstGateways product also meets our privacy and confidentiality needs with a strong technical security system that supports the complexity of the consenting process."
"The size and scale of NYCLIX makes it one of the most prominent RHIO initiatives currently underway across the United States," said Joseph Casper, Senior Vice President, FCG Software Products. "The NYCLIX member hospitals represent a high level of user sophistication. With our FirstGateways physician portal, clinicians will be able to view a patient's medical records and medical history regardless of which NYCLIX member hospital provided the treatment. We will soon be providing NYCLIX members with licenses to use our FirstGateways Patient Portal, which will be released later this year. We are also pleased that we will host the solution in our data center and are excited to continue to work with organizations of this caliber."
NYCLIX's work is being funded in part by a $2.33B contract it received from New York State under the Health Efficiency and Affordability Law (HEAL) program. NYCLIX also has received funding from the National Institutes of Health and the New York Community Trust. Additional funding and in-kind work is being provided by the NYCLIX participant organizations.
NYCLIX's goals are aligned with the agenda of New York State Governor Eliot Spitzer to use information technology to advance patient-centered care and enable improvements in health care quality, affordability and outcomes for each person, family and business in New York State.
The current participating NYCLIX institutions are: Bellevue Hospital, Beth Israel Medical Center, Columbia University Medical Center Faculty Practice Organization, The Institute for Family Health, Kings County Hospital, Long Island Jewish Hospital, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital, Mount Sinai Medical Center, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, New York University Medical Center, Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Center, St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital, Staten Island University Hospital and the Visiting Nurse Service of New York.
SOURCE: NYCLIX, Inc