RIDGELAND, MS – The Mississippi Coastal Health Information Exchange (MSCHIE) has launched Phase 2 of its deployment, which will expand services to four additional health systems, launch a community outreach training program and integrate with additional electronic health record vendors.

Phase 2 is a major milestone in MSCHIE's efforts to improve patient care coordination and clinical outcomes in the counties hit hardest by Hurricane Katrina. Since that disaster demonstrated to officials the difficulty of treating patients effectively and efficiently when paper records are destroyed and comprehensive health information is inaccessible, Mississippi has focused on implementing information technologies to ensure quality and continuity of care for its citizens

The inaugural MSCHIE participants were Memorial Hospital at Gulfport, Singing River Health System (including Singing River Hospital and Ocean Springs Hospital), and Coastal Family Health Center, a federally qualified health center representing multiple clinics. Under Phase 2, they'll be joined by four additional health systems. The expansion will extend a diverse functionality set, powered by Medicity's health information exchange technology, to the new participants.

Currently, MSCHIE enables physicians to access longitudinal patient records that include outpatient medication history, ADT data, laboratory results, transcribed reports, and discharge summaries. Also, crucial for a community where a significant number of patients use Medicaid, medication histories in the MSCHIE system include Medicaid data.

"By exchanging health information across hospitals and clinics in six counties, we are empowering our providers to make better, timelier and safer treatment decisions at the point of care – and we're making it easier for them to demonstrate meaningful use of electronic health records under ARRA," said James S. McIlwain, MD, president and CEO of Information & Quality Healthcare (IQH) and task force grant administrator for the MSCHIE. "As additional participants join the MSCHIE, we are positioned to more effectively and efficiently care for patients in the area and handle any future emergencies."

To increase the value of MSCHIE throughout the community, Phase 2 will include an aggressive outreach training campaign targeting clinics associated with participating hospitals and other providers in the community. The exchange will also integrate with eMDs and Allscripts EHRs as part of Phase 2.
 
MSCHIE employs Medicity technology to aggregate and stage community data from across disparate systems and care locations, perform patient-matching, create longitudinal patient records and make them accessible to providers, and integrate with EHR systems in the community. Dell Perot Systems provides data center services for the exchange.

"We are pleased to work with the MSCHIE to not only rebuild the area's health IT infrastructure but also to make an unprecedented level of care collaboration possible throughout the community," said Medicity CEO Kipp Lassetter, M.D.