Industry Insight

Texas Hospital Association Implements
Patient Matching EMPI Solution

NextGate, a health care technology company for patient and provider identification, recently announced that the Texas Hospital Association (THA) has launched NextGate’s MatchMetrix technology platform as its enterprise master patient index (EMPI) solution. The patient-matching solution correlates patient identifiers across a pilot of THA’s 250 hospitals with the intention of expanding to its entire 452 member hospitals in the future.

Driven by its vision of a unified health care delivery system for Texas, THA is leveraging NextGate’s EMPI technology to assess and analyze data from its member hospitals to help them fulfill their mission of providing the best possible care. One of the largest hospital associations in the United States, THA regularly provides data and analytics services, as well as advocacy, for its members.

“Collaboration between providers is key to improving the quality of care patients receive, but to collaborate effectively, providers need the ability to view accurate data from across the continuum,” says Fernando Martinez, THA chief digital officer. “Unfortunately, the current market produces data siloes and multiple patient identifiers that make it difficult to correlate data from disparate sources. With NextGate’s EMPI, we are building a system that will overcome this challenge for all of our hospitals.”

Through this new partnership, THA will aggregate data submitted from the initial 250 hospital members, laying the foundation for better data management and accurate patient identity across all its member hospitals in the State of Texas.

The EMPI will give THA’s members additional care and cost value along with market-leading technology. NextGate’s EMPI solution delivers the ability to accurately match and link patient information in the absence of a common identifier, allowing providers to achieve a unified view of any patient.

“We are thrilled to partner with THA to deliver better data to hospitals and health systems throughout Texas, helping to minimize medical errors, reduce billing issues, improve interactions with patients, and enhance information sharing,” says Andy Aroditis, CEO and cofounder of NextGate. “Good data will serve as a foundation for THA and for its members as they work to improve the health care system.”

— Source: NextGate

Next Medical Records and RecordQuest Join AHIOS

The Association of Health Information Outsourcing Services (AHIOS), an organization of executives from HIM outsourcing companies who promote excellence in managing risk and compliance issues around disclosure of protected health information recently announced that Next Medical Records and RecordQuest have joined the growing association.

Based in Bryan, Texas, Next Medical Records joins AHIOS under the leadership of its CEO, Carlos A. Rodriguez, who has built the company into a market leader with a full suite of customizable offerings including full outsource, in-house, remote release of information (ROI), and facilities management solutions. Next Medical Records uses a private portal Web delivery (software as a service model) and secure cloud technology to deliver medical records to requestors in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, and Texas.

“We are excited to be a part of AHIOS and to be working with other leading HIM outsourcing organizations to promote excellence in the delivery of ROI outsourcing services,” Rodriguez says. “Joining AHIOS will help ensure that we continue to keep abreast of the critical regulations and compliance issues as well as the industry best practices that will be shaping our industry for years to come.”

Also joining AHIOS is RecordQuest, located in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, a company that uses advanced technology built from the ground up to bring unprecedented levels of automation and economies of scale to address the inefficiencies of the ROI process for clients nationwide. RecordQuest provides user-friendly Electronic Patient Information Exchange (ePIX) software that streamlines clients’ ROI workflow and enables staff to process requests for patient records efficiently while enhancing compliance, reducing expenses, and helping medical facilities to generate more revenue.

“RecordQuest is proud to be a member of AHIOS and contribute to the association’s important work in ensuring standards of excellence for the entire ROI industry,” says Jack C. Sprott, cofounder and chief operating officer at RecordQuest. “We are looking forward to working with AHIOS members in an exchange of ideas to elevate the landscape for HIM professionals and our client organizations.”

“We have entered a very challenging time in health care and with ever-increasing and complex compliance and quality assurance issues, the need for ROI outsourcing is greater than ever before,” says Stephen Hynes, president of AHIOS. “At this juncture, it’s crucial that the ROI industry comes together to deliver the highest quality services and create a more efficient health care system amidst the changes of reform. Next Medical Records and RecordQuest are wonderful examples of companies that will strengthen our advocacy and education initiatives for the ROI industry and that will help us address complex quality assurance and compliance issues that are essential to the work of our member organizations and the entire health care industry.”

Visit http://ahios.org/index.php/our-members to view the complete list of AHIOS members.