| MAINE HEALTH INFORMATION CENTER | |||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||
|
The MHIC is an independent, nonprofit, health data organization focused on providing healthcare data services to a wide range of clients in Maine and other states.
MHIC's MISSION
|
Maine’s HealthInfoNet Chooses 3M
For Statewide Health Information Exchange
Singer Named MHIC PresidentSinger will succeed James Harnar, who leaves the MHIC at the end of this month to become the Executive Director of the Dan Hanley Memorial Trust. Harnar has served as MHIC President since 2002 and is expected to remain involved in several MHIC projects on a consulting basis. A resident of Farmingdale, Singer joined the MHIC 26 years ago as a systems analyst. She was named Vice President in 1992, overseeing information technology and administration. In recent years she has been a key figure in the establishment of the nation’s first public health, pharmacy and dental insurance claims databases, which have been developed through a public-private partnership between the MHIC and the Maine Health Data Organization. She currently is heading up the development of a similar database in New Hampshire. Singer also has overseen a major expansion of the MHIC’s technical infrastructure over the past three years. Singer holds an undergraduate degree in mathematics from Kansas State University and held several positions within the Maine Department of Human Services before joining the MHIC. In other news, John LaCasse, President of Medical Care Development, will assume the chairmanship of the MHIC Board October 1, succeeding Lisa Miller. LaCasse was an original member of the MHIC Board and previously served as MHIC chair in the early 1980’s and mid-1990’s. Established in 1976, the MHIC employs 25 research and information technology professionals and support staff.
New Board Members Represent Maine Business As Well As New Hampshire InterestsThe Maine Health Information Center has added three new members to its Board of Directors, including a leading insurance executive from Maine and two health care leaders from New Hampshire. Joining the MHIC board are John Marr, Senior Vice President for Claims at Maine Employers Mutual Insurance Co. of Portland; Edgar "Ned" Helms of the University of New Hampshire Institute for Health Practice and Policy; and, Stephen Norton, Deputy Director of the New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies. Marr has been a senior executive at Maine's largest workers' compensation insurance company since MEMIC was founded in 1993. Helms, a former Commissioner of Human Services in New Hampshire, is a well known figure in that state's health care community and a former executive at Blue Cross and Blue Shield. Until earlier this yeear, Norton directed New Hampshire's Medicaid program. Before joining New Hampshire state government, Norton served with the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C. for many years. At its September 13 Annual Meeting, the following officers were named by the MHIC for the coming year:
Chair: John LaCasse, President, Medical Care Development
MHINT Interconnectivity Project Begins Phase IIThe Maine Health Information Network Technology (MHINT) Steering Committee* has announced that it has begun the Phase II Planning and Development process necessary to establish a statewide interconnected clinical information sharing system for Maine. In recent weeks the Maine Health Access Foundation, the Maine Quality Forum and Maine Bureau of Health have provided additional funding to allow Phase II to begin. This current support will allow the MHINT project to proceed through mid-October. The Steering Committee is actively pursuing additional funding to complete a full 12-month Phase II process required to lay the essential foundation for the sharing of clinical data. The planning and development process will be led by the Maine Health Information Center (MHIC), which conducted the Phase I feasibility study in the fall and early winter of 2004. Based on input from a wide range of providers, government officials, insurers and others during MHINT Phase I Feasibility Study, the Steering Committee has identified key questions that will be answered early in Phase II. These include:
The Steering Committee is deeply committed to continuing an inclusive process aimed at engaging providers, payers, consumers, government agencies, employers and others in addressing these and other questions. Joining the MHINT Technical Planning Team for Phase II will be Jerry Edson, who has just retired after a long and distinguished career as CIO at Maine Medical Center. Former MHIC President Alice Chapin, who served as a network consultant in Phase I, has been named MHINT Project Coordinator. Phase II plans call for quickly assembling key clinical and IT leaders to address the many technical issues that need to be resolved. The leadership of consumer groups also will be convened early in Phase II. In mid-June a group of stakeholders from across the state at the Hanley Leadership Forum at Bowdoin College to begin the process of developing an implementation plan and discuss system governance, financing, consumer engagement and other important elements of the MHINT project. The MHINT Phase I feasibility study found that there is now rapid growth taking place across the state in health IT systems, including electronic medical records. However, the study verified that this development is occurring independently at the local and hospital-system levels. Until the MHINT project began, little has been done to explore how patient-specific clinical data can be quickly and efficiently shared with providers outside the local community or across systems and state lines. Before the MHINT project began, there was no mechanism in place to monitor and coordinate any collaboration among these traditional institutional silos of patient medical record information. Through the MHINT process, steps are now being taken to ensure that patient level medical information can be electronically shared across systems in a way that will ensure the protection of privacy and allow clinicians and patients timely access to the most accurate medical information available. The clinical information sharing infrastructure now under consideration would involve building a system that would allow for the secure and immediate point-of-care sharing of key patient-specific clinical information to:
A series of advisory committee and work group meetings took place in October through December of 2004. Health care CEOs, physicians and IT leaders took part in a process aimed at developing a unified clinical information sharing “vision” for the state and a list of criteria that can be used in assessing technology solutions that might be considered for Maine.
MHINT STEERING COMMITTEE*
Data now available from the Maine Health Care Claims Data Bank
The Maine Health Information Center is now planning a first round of research projects using newly-available data from the Maine Health Care Claims Data Bank. Data are now available from the Data Bank following a three-year development process. The Claims Data Bank is the nation's first comprehensive, publicly-available repository of statewide medical, pharmacy and dental insurance claims data. Today, the Claims Data Bank contains data for more than 5 out of every 10 residents, an estimated 681,000 privately-insured individuals. That number will increase dramatically in 2005 as claims data from MaineCare and Medicare are added to the data bank. Because the Data Bank includes claims data from all health care settings, it is expected to become a rich source of never-before-available information about how Maine people use health care services, and how much is paid for care. The data will be made available through the Maine Health Data Organization. For more information, see the Status Report.
New Hospital Outpatient Reporting Package Available
This spring the MHIC is joining with the Maine Hospital Association to make available a new Hospital Outpatient Reporting Package to Maine's hospital community. For many years hospital leaders have been well aware of the rapid growth of services outside the inpatient setting. But until now very little reliable data has been available about this important and fast-growing sector of Maine's healthcare market. The reporting package is aimed at filling this information void through a new, customized outpatient reporting package designed to support more informed decision making by hospital leaders. This new resource will give hospital leaders the answers to many questions critical to their strategic planning. The Hospital Outpatient Reporting Package will include five separate reports. Click Here To Review Package and Place Order. The primary outpatient report will provide outpatient patient origin information in a format that's similar to the inpatient patient origin reports that hospitals now receive from MHA. Four additional reports give hospital leaders much more detailed information that will help them answer a wide range of questions relating to outpatient services, including your ED. A special Decision Support Dashboard will highlight key data points and trends and help hospitals better understand and use the information contained in the entire package.
Maine hospitals have been anxious to access outpatient data since the state began collecting this information in the mid-1990s. The new Reporting Package will include the latest available data from the state (2003) and will include trend information dating back to 2002. Over time, we plan to work with the state to make more current data available for future reporting.
MHIC Contributes To Physician Performance Bonus Initiative
This winter approximately 175 primary care physician practices across Maine received notification from Bath Iron Works, Maine Municipal Employees Health Trust and CIGNA Healthcare that they will be receiving a financial reward for achieving good results on the Pathways to Excellence Primary Care measures. This is the first round of rewards based upon the PTE program. The Maine Health Information Center—under contract to the Maine Health Management Coalition's PTE project—performed much of the data collection, research and analysis involved in this major statewide initiative. Approximately $400,000 is being distributed to the practices, which represent about 40% of the primary care practices in the state. Most of the rewards are being distributed to the approximately 84 primary care practices who achieved "3 star" status in the PTE Primary Care measurement process (see www.mhmc.info). Each practice is receiving the same per member per month payment for the number of purchaser lives in their practice. Actual checks to practices will range from $1,500 to over $20,000 based on their number of BIW, Maine Municipal Employees Health Trust and CIGNA Healthcare lives in that practice. The average award will be approximately $3,400 per practice. In addition to rewarding these practices, the purchasers also wanted to recognize those approximately 92 primary care practices who achieved "2 star" status. Each of these practices will receive a check for $1,000. The results from the PTE Primary Care measurement process are also being used by other purchasers. Both Hannaford Bros./MedNet and Anthem announced this fall their intention to go forward with similar programs using the PTE measurement process. The Pathways to Excellence Steering Committee, sponsored by the Maine Health Management Coalition, is composed of 6 employers, 12 physicians, and 3 health plans. The committee has worked for three years to develop quality measures that can be used for educating employees and their families and for recognizing and rewarding physician practices which successfully meet the goals and measurements. The PTE project included three main performance measurement components:
For more information, visit the MHMC PTE web site at http://www.mhmc.info or contact the program at 207-729-4929. |
