Featured in RHIO Monitor CALRHIO selects Vendors

Featured in: RHIO MonitorCalRHIO Selects Medicity and Perot Systems Corporation to Build Statewide Health Information Exchange for California
CalRHIO Selects Medicity and Perot Systems Corporation to BuildStatewide Health Information Exchange for California
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., March13, 2007 – CalRHIO announced today that it has selected Medicity, Inc.,teamed with Perot Systems Corporation (NYSE:PER), to build a statewidehealth information exchange utility service that will offer Californiahealth care providers secure electronic access to patient medicalrecords, where and when they are needed.
“CalRHIO’s primary goal is to deliver critical health informationservices reliably and affordably to clinicians, patients, state,county, and federal health agencies, and local exchange effortsthroughout California,” said CalRHIO CEO and President DonaldHolmquest, MD, JD. “Medicity and Perot Systems were selected becausetheir solution offers a strong, proven, and scalable technologyplatform that will eliminate limitations on how individual health careorganizations and local communities design and implement the healthinformation exchange services they need.”
“In addition to a suite of solutions that are already integrated andinteroperable, Medicity and Perot Systems brought an innovativefinancial model to the table that will enable us to sustain the projectlong term,” said Molly Coye, MD, MPH, one of the founding directors ofCalRHIO’s board and CEO and president of the Health Technology Center.“Creating a sustainable business model is one of the biggest challengesfor health information exchange efforts nationally,” Coye noted, citingfindings of a federal study she chaired last year that assessed ninestatewide HIE initiatives.
Medicity and Perot Systems’ first step will be to assist in theprocurement of private seed money to fund start-up costs for theCalRHIO HIE utility service, including building the statewide backboneinfrastructure and integration, marketing and communication, andCalRHIO’s operating budget. Financing requirements for this phase areestimated at $300 million.
The health information exchange platform will make it possible forphysician offices, hospitals, and health plans that have invested inhealth information technology to use their current technology to accessdata outside their walls. While details of charges are yet to bedetermined, the savings expected as a result of having betterinformation will be many times greater than the cost, according toHolmquest.
Through its partnership with Medicity and Perot Systems, CalRHIOwill offer a suite of secure, privacy-protected services from whichorganizations can select to use all, some, or none. For example, forcommunities that want to enable all their health care providers toexchange information, CalRHIO’s HIE utility service will offer anoptional alternative to building and financing their owninfrastructure. For communities that have already initiated localhealth information exchange efforts, the services offered will becompatible and complementary.
“It is imperative that we get a technology solution up and runningas soon as possible to accommodate the needs of California doctors,hospitals, and patients,” Holmquest said. “Every day in California,50,000 or more patients are experiencing suboptimal care solely becauseimportant medical information is missing from their records. Payers andpatients are paying huge additional costs because of the fragmentedcare that result from lack of timely information.”
-