report immunizations to the Texas Immunization Registry (ImmTrac) and influenza cases to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The HIE Advisory Committee re- quested a cost estimate to expand that into a larger health service enterprise gateway that would give physicians a single place to exchange data with all state health agencies. In other words, instead of a physician reporting im- munization data to ImmTrac, cancer cases to the state cancer registry, and so on, physicians would be able to report all relevant data to the state through one portal. (See “Where the Data Would Travel,” opposite page.) If the enterprise gateway comes to fruition and connects to local HIEs, physicians can pay a single fee to the EHR vendor for the HIE interface, rather than several fees for each state connection, Dr. Schneider says. The committee says the enterprise
gateway would streamline and secure data sharing, and it has the potential to reduce costs and improve health outcomes. To view the HIE Advisory Committee’s January presentation, which includes information on the enterprise gateway, visit tma.tips/En terpriseGateway. Dr. Schneider compares the enter- prise gateway to a post office — the user can drop off any information they need to send in one place, where it is then sorted and sent to the relevant state department. Ideally, he says, physicians would enter the information into an HIE, which would then use the gateway to forward the information to the state. “Instead of having lots of these dif-
ferent connections to and from my EHR … there would be one pipe I can use to send and one pipe I can use to receive,” he said.
A PLAN FOR GROWTH Sylvia Kauffman, former director of the Office of e-Health Coordination at HHSC, says about 1,400 Texas health professionals use the state’s existing gateway, which, she adds, is bidirec-
tional — not only can users send in- formation to the state, they can also receive information from the state. She says HHSC, at the HIE Advi- sory Committee’s request, is finalizing a plan and cost estimate to expand the existing DSHS gateway to allow addi- tional data exchange, such as Medic- aid claims and clinical data. She says the state already has the funds to sup- port the exchange of electronic lab
reporting, newborn screenings, sexu- ally transmitted disease reporting, and clinical summary data exchange between state hospitals and mental health authorities.
Once HHSC has a cost estimate,
Ms. Kauffman says, it will hand it over to the HIE Advisory Commit- tee, which can help others lobby the Texas Legislature for funds to support the project.
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