The Integrated Care Collaboration (ICC) has been nationally recognized for its efforts in health information exchange (HIE) and community-wide care transformation to improve quality, increase access, and lower costs across unaffiliated providers throughout the spectrum of healthcare delivery since the intial data exchanges began in 2002. The ICC upgraded its health information exchange platform to support technology-enabled, patient-centric delivery and the ability to measure Accountable Care Organization’s (ACOs) established outcomes in 2011. With federal and state emphasis on health information technology, Meaningful Use requirements, and ACOs, providers are now looking to ICare as the regional health information exchange solution for Central Texas.

The ICC’s current second-generation query based HIE solution has been live and in-use by providers and hospitals since September 2011.  A data warehousing and analytics solution has been coupled with the data to facilitate performance based outcome analysis, validate patient information, and assist with community health research.

The ICC has achieved full accreditation with the Texas Health Information Exchange Accreditation Program (TX-HIEAP) from the Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission (EHNAC) and the Texas Health Services Authority. Texas HIE Accreditation ensures HIEs within Texas are interoperable with state and federal programs, and provide the private, secure and proper exchange of health information in accordance with established laws and public policy.

The ICC has also achieved full accreditation with the Direct Trusted Agent Accreditation Program (DTAAP) for HISP from DirectTrust.org and the EHNAC. Direct Trusted Agents accreditation recognizes the excellence in health data processing and transactions, and ensures compliance with industry-established standards, HIPAA regulations, and the Direct Project.

The Texas Health Services Authority (THSA) is the entity responsible for monitoring and tracking state-wide HIE implementation and adoption. The State HIE Snapshot document displays a consistent set of implementation metrics in an effort to share perspective on the HIE activity across Texas. The Snapshot is organized by the two types of exchanges. You can find more information about HIE implementations across the state at the THSA website: THSA (www.hietexas.org)

HIE Objectives

The ICC’s primary objective is to provide a regional health information exchange that is trusted and valued by all stakeholders to enable improved care coordination. The overarching objectives of the ICC are as follows:

• Improve continuity of care by providing rapid access to patient health information from multiple healthcare sites across multiple systems
• Provide cost savings by reducing redundant clinical tests for the same patient
• Increase the trust of consumers, patients, and providers in health information exchange by ensuring strong privacy and security safeguards
• Encourage the adoption of electronic health record systems by economically facilitating secure sharing of information
• Facilitates sharing of lab results
• Robust data analytics and quality reporting services across the continuum of care
• Allows users to meet meaningful use standards for community data exchange