Health Information Exchange Sees Participation Surge Amid COVID-19

Ready access to patient data has been a common roadblock for providers and this issue has been especially apparent during COVID-19.

To lessen this burden, HealtHIE Nevada, the state’s health information exchange (HIE), wanted to give clinicians full access without barriers to patient data. Michael Gagnon, executive director of HealtHIE, and his team decided to give this access to providers who had not yet signed up for the service.

Because the statewide HIE had recently connected to the Southern Nevada health district and to the Nevada State Public Health Lab, HealtHIE had the ability to incorporate the health district’s reporting, as well as getting COVID-19 tests from the Nevada State Public Health Lab.

“We thought that having that information would be very valuable to providers,” said Gagnon in an interview with EHRIntelligence. “We offered it as somewhere between 90 and 120 days and we would give free access to up to five people per site. It’s been quite successful and it’s worked out quite well.”