Tampa General Hospital, a not-for-profit level-one trauma center and primary teaching hospital for the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine (USF Health) has chosen RelayHealth to establish its enterprise health information exchange (HIE) with USF Health and other interested physicians in the area. The RelayHealth patient-centric interoperability platform will enable CCD data exchange to create longitudinal patient records across a diverse set of acute and ambulatory EHR systems, as well as other HIEs used in the metropolitan Tampa area and the state. This will support Tampa General Hospital’s efforts to improve care coordination in the central Florida region.

Tampa General Hospital receives many patients from USF Health and requires a solution to help them reduce paper referrals and facilitate HIE outside of their internal systems.

“RelayHealth has demonstrated success both connecting inside the enterprise as well as outside the delivery system to other HIEs, which positions it as the best solution to meet our needs,” said Elizabeth Lindsay-Wood, Senior Vice President/CIO, Tampa General Hospital. “We share roughly 30%-40% of our patients with USF Health, so it was vitally important that we get a system in place to accommodate health information exchange and the aggregation of patient information into one longitudinal record.”

Tampa General Hospital is preparing to attest for Stage 2 Meaningful Use certification, having achieved Stage 1 Meaningful Use earlier in the year. The next phase, according to Lindsay-Wood, will be connecting to the Tampa Bay Regional Health Information Organization (TBRHIO).

“RelayHealth Enterprise HIE is a scalable solution that will grow with Tampa General Hospital as the demands of their community change. The establishment of a reliable interoperable health information exchange that connects to other HIE initiatives is key for effective population health management and preparing for new payment models,” explained Jeff Felton, president, RelayHealth.

About RelayHealth

RelayHealth, McKesson's connectivity business, operates as a neutral partner in an open network environment, offering connectivity services and integration among all organizations, systems, and solutions. Its intelligent network is designed to streamline clinical, financial and administrative communication between patients, providers, payers, pharmacies, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and financial institutions. RelayHealth works to accelerate the delivery of high-quality care and improve financial performance through solutions such as online consultation of physicians, electronic prescribing, point-of-service pharmacy claims resolution by payers. RelayHealth securely processes more than 12.8 billion financial and clinical transactions annually.