ST. PAUL, MN – Lawson Software, an Infor affiliate, today announced that Southern Tier HealthLink (STHL) has successfully expanded its use of Lawson Cloverleaf® Hosted Healthcare Information Exchange (HIE). STHL is a non-profit regional health information exchange organization (RHIO) in central New York.

STHL serves four counties in the region -- Broome, Chenango, Tioga, and Delaware -- with approximately 350,000 residents, five hospitals and more than 700 physicians. It was created with leadership and support from United Health Services, Lourdes Hospital and other stakeholders in 2005 to help improve healthcare quality, access and safety, while reducing costs.

The Cloverleaf Hosted HIE solution has been in place at STHL for more than 10 years, but the organization needed to expand its network to connect with more care providers across the state. By expanding its use of Lawson Cloverleaf Hosted HIE, STHL has connected its electronic health records to other RHIOs and health systems. STHL is also now ready to connect to New York Medicaid through the State Health Information Network of New York.

STHL offers several HIE services, including a web portal for authorized medical providers, two-way clinical document exchange with two electronic medical record platforms, an iPhone/iPad application, and a referral management service. As a result, STHL is giving clinicians faster, more accurate access to a wide range of patient data at the point of care. STHL is now exchanging patient records with 121 practices and five hospitals, an imaging center, two nursing homes, and a public health department.

"Our primary goal is to improve healthcare quality and expedite accurate diagnoses to improve outcomes and help contain the cost of healthcare in the region. To accomplish this, physicians and patients need access to comprehensive health data so they can better manage care," said Christina Galanis, executive director, STHL. "Lawson has helped us meet our interoperability goals to promote secure information sharing. The Lawson Consulting Services team helped us navigate the complex 'Meaningful Use' requirements and had our system up and running within the project deadline."

In addition to expanding its use of Lawson Cloverleaf HIE, STHL also added the following:

New functionality to its Cloverleaf Patient Portal: Through the updated portal, patients have more control over their health-related information. They can now manage their consent and share data with their doctor, monitor who is accessing their information, and review their health records from the various providers, physician offices and hospitals they visit through a Microsoft HealthVault application.

Lawson Cloverleaf IHE Infrastructure Adaptor, which facilitates RHIO-to-RHIO interoperability and allows clinicians to gain access to patient data from surrounding communities.

"Building or extending an HIE is an important step for today's healthcare organizations, because a reliable flow of information is essential in managing patient care," said Jim Catalino, senior vice president and general manager, Lawson Healthcare. "Lawson understands the unique challenges of the healthcare industry, and our solutions can help health systems and organizations like Southern Tier HealthLink meet their information exchange requirements to help provide faster, more accurate and lower cost healthcare."

Lawson Healthcare is the information technology partner that helps manage and connect the clinical, financial and operational information that allows providers to concentrate on their mission of delivering the best patient care possible. Lawson Healthcare has the combination of software, people and industry know-how to help improve the business of healthcare.

About Lawson Software

Lawson Software is an Infor affiliate with more than 4,500 customers worldwide, primarily in specific services, trade and manufacturing/distribution industries.