HIT Service Integration

Project Details -
Completed

This grant allowed the Bayou Teche Community Health Network (ByNet) to partner with Franklin Foundation Hospital (the lead grantee agency) to establish an integrated clinical and human services information network for public and private service providers to residents of St. Mary Parish and surrounding parishes. Safety net providers serving St. Mary Parish committed both administrative time and information technology (IT) staff to complete the intensive one-year planning process. Key components of the analysis included, among others, the connection of existing information systems to allow for sharing of relevant data elements; expansion of the sharing of information; creation of a medication management system with electronic note-writing ability; and establishment of information sharing agreements to allow sharing of clinical data among staff. Throughout the duration of the grant, three major initiatives related to health IT that affected specific ByNet partners were implemented. One aspect of this process was to assess the potential to leverage one or more of these initiatives as a tool to enhance the health IT capacity of all network partners. As a result, the planning phase of this project achieved its primary objective of forming a collaborative network to facilitate the linking of safety-net providers' health IT systems.