HIE4AK Project - PROJECT ABSTRACT
Title: HIE4AK Project
State: Alaska
Applicant Name: Department of Health and Social Services
Address: 3601 C Street, Ste 902, Anchorage, AK 99503-7167
Contact Name: Mr. William Streur, Deputy Commissioner, Medicaid and Health Policy
Phone: (907) 269-7827, Fax (907) 269-5911, Email: william.streur@alaska.gov
Web site: http://www.hss.state.ak.us/
Congressional Districts: AK-00
The grantee, the State of Alaska and partners representing stakeholders from across the health care continuum have been working together to create a comprehensive Statewide Health Information Exchange Plan (comprising both a strategic and operational plan) for Alaska. This plan was updated in November of 2008, and will inform and direct future work related to HIE and the implementation of electronic health records (EHR) in Alaska.
The State of Alaska, Department of Health and Social Services and all Alaskans will derive benefits through the HIE4AK initiative via the following goals: 1) Improve security - increase patient privacy & security in exchanging medical records due to increased HIPAA compliance; 2) Improve efficiency - reduction of duplicate, unnecessary testing & procedures, improve monitoring & education of chronically ill patients to reduce or prevent unnecessary clinic/hospital visits, and reduce health agency administrative costs due to quick access to back-up documentation for insurance claim inquiries, audits, and malpractice allegations; 3) Better case management - improve patient outcomes due to timely intervention, access to patient health information, and seamless patient referrals to specialists or other clinicians; 4) Greater patient/provider satisfaction - standardize level of quality expert care irrespective of where patients reside in Alaska and when they need health care; and 5) Enhance rapid response to public health emergencies.
The expected outcomes from this initiative are: 1) Improved patient access to medical care, 2) Improved patient safety; and 3) Implementation of a statewide health information exchange infrastructure. Products include: An HIE infrastructure for Alaska, final report, including evaluation results.
