New Rural Health Funding Available to Cover CORHIO Onboarding

Rural healthcare providers are vital members of the care community in Colorado – but their utilization of health information exchange (HIE) has been historically low. It can be difficult to incorporate HIE projects into over-burdened IT departments – and cost can be a significant barrier.

But with higher rates of chronic illness and lack of resources, our rural communities need HIE services to improve clinical decision-making, quality reporting, referrals, and care coordination. They must reap the benefits of interoperability between providers regardless of location.

To that end, CORHIO is collaborating with Colorado Rural Health Center and the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing to prioritize health information exchange (HIE) participation for rural healthcare providers. The goal of the program is to increase the number, types, and levels of connectivity of rural hospital, Medicaid providers and other rural health providers. Ideally, providers will become bidirectional, meaning they are both transmitting to and receiving data from the CORHIO HIE.

Healthcare providers who meet approved rural county and Advance Payment Model (APM) practice designation criteria are eligible to receive:

• Access to CORHIO’s web-based patient data query portal PatientCare 360®-- free for one year
• Reimbursement of EHR vendor fees (up to a designated limit) for transmission of Continuity of Care Documents (CCDs) into the CORHIO system
• Up to 10 hours of technical assistance to help with the CCD connection

The timeline of this program is limited, so if your organization is interested in more information, please act quickly. Contact Doug Swords, CORHIO Sales Manager, at dswords@corhio.org.