Hixny, a health information exchange (HIE) serving eastern New York and Vermont, has developed a patient record snapshot tool to enhance data access for clinicians. By incorporating search and sorting features, the tool simplifies the process of finding patient information, reducing the time spent searching for data. Integration with major EHR vendors has significantly increased provider usage, leading to improved patient care. Hixny continues to gather feedback from focus groups to expand and refine the tool’s capabilities based on user needs.
Hixny, an esteemed health information exchange (HIE) serving eastern New York and Vermont, has introduced a novel tool designed to optimize data access through improved search and sorting capabilities.
While HIE has the potential to drive patient-centered care, it is crucial to prioritize clinician-centered data access to fully leverage the benefits of interoperability.
Currently, clinicians often find themselves signing out of their Electronic Health Record (EHR) system and logging into a separate HIE portal to search for patient information. Once they locate the patient, they must manually sift through a collection of discrete data elements to find the specific information they require.
To enhance the user experience, Hixny, a health information network (HIN) serving healthcare providers across eastern New York and Vermont, has developed a patient record snapshot tool.
Julia Prusik, Manager of Product Development at Hixny, explained, “Many users expressed concerns about the lack of ease when retrieving important documents such as discharge summaries or operative reports.”
She further elaborated, “After locating the encounter, users had to navigate to the document section and manually search through numerous documents to find the one corresponding to the specific encounter.”
Prusik emphasized that during the initial development of the patient snapshot tool, Hixny formed a focus group comprising of providers from various healthcare sectors to determine the essential patient information.
“Encounter data emerged as highly significant,” Prusik revealed. “Providers unanimously desired access to our labs and documents, and they specifically requested sorting and searching capabilities, which were not readily available.”
“To fulfill their needs, we had to design our user interface (UI) in a way that allowed easy manipulation, enabling users to view the data they required through keyword searches, filters, and sorting options,” she added. “At that stage, it essentially became an exercise in optimizing the UI to deliver the desired data.”
Prusik acknowledged the significance of the focus groups in helping Hixny determine which information should be included in the patient snapshot and which could be accessed with a few additional clicks.
For instance, early on in the application’s development, Hixny considered incorporating allergy information into the snapshot.
“There was a unanimous consensus within the HIE community that allergies were the most critical and significant use case,” Prusik explained. “The conventional thinking was that if a patient collapses and all you have is their driver’s license, knowing their allergies becomes essential.”
However, the focus groups revealed that providers did not utilize the HIE as frequently to check allergies as Hixny had initially assumed. Instead, providers prioritized easy access to patient conditions, recent visits, lab data, and documents.
Prusik commented, “It was an enlightening experience to gather people’s opinions at the outset because none of them had ever been asked before. They were eager to provide their insights, but unfortunately, their suggestions were often disregarded.”
The first version of the tool received positive feedback from network members. However, providers still expressed frustration about having to log into a separate portal to access patient information.
Hixny promptly took action to integrate the tool with major Electronic Health Record (EHR) vendors using the SMART on FHIR data standard.
The application was piloted at Ellis Hospital, and over the first year, the average time it took for a provider to search for a patient’s HIE data decreased by 30 seconds.
“Saving 30 seconds per patient translates into significant time savings per day,” Prusik emphasized. “That additional time can be dedicated to giving patients the attention they deserve.”
What was even more remarkable was the surge in provider usage following the integration of the tool into clinical workflows. Overall, Ellis Hospital witnessed a staggering 674 percent increase in usage of the patient snapshot tool after its integration within its EHR system.
“We discovered that EHR integration was pivotal in encouraging healthcare professionals to utilize this data and make it relevant to their practice,” Prusik explained. “They employed it far more extensively than when they accessed the portal independently because the integration made the process considerably simpler.”
Prusik highlighted that Hixny actively encourages ongoing input from its members through monthly focus groups.
“Anyone can join,” she emphasized. “We recently added several care managers to our focus group, and they are eager to discuss and contribute. It is truly rewarding to gather everyone in one space and work collectively toward the common goal of improving our service for users.”
Currently, Hixny is collaborating with the Department of Health to further expand the capabilities of the patient record snapshot based on feedback from the focus groups.
“We are currently working on integrating the prescription monitoring program and have also developed a referral tool,” Prusik shared. “Hixny is committed to making data from non-traditional sources more relevant for these providers. Through our focus groups, we aim to identify the data sources they frequently access and bring them back into their workflow.”
