Health Information Exchange

Since our founding, SSG has worked in Health Information Exchange (HIE) and Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). Having worked with state and local government, health care facilities and EHR vendors, SSG brings a range of perspectives to HIE related business processes, requirements definition and architecture designs. This experience, firsthand knowledge of Laboratory Reporting, Health Disparities and Syndromic Surveillance data exchange, and reliable delivery of quality work provides a strong resource to support HIE project teams.

Over the years, we have performed the following for a wide range of projects:

• Business Process Definition.

  Define business processes utilizing Meaningful Use data transactions. Business processes incorporate the typical workflow processes and infrastructure within health care provider sites and specify general best practices for HIE (e.g. trigger points, error handling, monitoring, data quality assurance).

• Requirements Definition.

  Define requirements for data exchange systems including, but not limited to, data definitions, code set definitions (OID registration as necessary), message type definitions, data mappings, error handling, vulnerability protection and security requirements. SSG has worked extensively to define data fields and code sets for HIE.

• Architecture Design.

  Design health information exchange IT infrastructure architectures in accordance with Meaningful Use guidelines and industry best practices. In working with local, state and private organizations, SSG incorporates an understanding of existing IT infrastructure available within architecture designs to ensure that they are secure, robust and flexible to reduce the burden on organizations trying to demonstrate Meaningful Use transactions.

• Software Development.

  Develop HIE gateways and data warehouses to receive, process and store health information. SSG has developed HIE infrastructure from scratch providing a detailed perspective of the common technical challenges and solutions (including the building of software tools to support provider sites in sending outbound compliant messages).

• Roll-out.

  Provide subject matter expertise and technical training to health care provider sites and electronic health records (EHR) systems trying to meet Meaningful Use criteria.

• Project Management.

  Manage overall HIE project activities to coordinate efforts among data senders and receivers. Catalogue common HIE project risk and lessons learned.

In addition to these capabilities, SSG has subject matter knowledge in the following:

1. Experts in HL7 Messages for Syndromic Surveillance, Laboratory Reporting and Health Disparities data. Implemented HL7 messages including VXU, ADT, QBP, RSP, VXQ, and ACK.
2. Experience with Electronic Data Interchange between Health Care Providers and Payers utilizing X12 messages.
3. Communication with all the hospitals in Massachusetts to provide orientation and training for health care providers on HIE and HL7.
4. Provide technical assistance for medical providers to meet Meaningful Use, including message construction, content validation, interface setup, connectivity testing, submission monitoring.
5. Assists hospital IT staff with HL7 message creation including definitions for reportable data fields and code value sets. Works with state and local epidemiologists to ensure provide communication to hospitals community.
6. Strong understanding of Meaningful Use core objectives related to syndromic surveillance, laboratory and immunization reporting.
7. Designed and developed HL7 Gateways for state and local level public health to collect information from provider sites. Solutions include custom built software and use of industry message broker platforms including Microsoft BizTalk and IBM WTX.
8. Management of development, implementation, and release of Electronic Medical and Health Record Systems (EMR/EHR), Immunization Information Systems (IIS), Health Information Exchange Systems (HIE), health data exchange interfaces, and medical technology products.
9. Creation and definition of local HL7 Implementation Guide for the data exchange.
10. Extensive knowledge of standards and guidelines defined for healthcare industry by HITTECH, CMS, CDC, ACCME, FDA, ONC, AIRA, and ACIP.
11. Regular participant and contributor at:
    • National Immunization Conference Annual meeting
    • Modeling of Immunization Registry Operations Workgroup meetings
    • American Immunization Registry Association conferences and workgroups
    • IIS Interoperability and Meaningful Use workgroups
    • State level working groups and conferences
    • Program Managers Immunization Registry Workgroup
12. Member of HL7 International, connected to the latest developments in standards.