BBRHIO – Is Ready for Your Involvement

By Zach Finn, BBRHIO Project Director

Please allow me to introduce you to the Big Bend Regional Healthcare Information Organization, or BBRHIO for short. Most of you have heard a snippet here and there about the BBRHIO however it has always been an interesting theoretical project that someone else was working on; well that is about to change… Now is the time to learn about the new electronic health information exchange (HIE) that has grown up and is operational right in your own backyard! The system is called a Regional Health Information Network (RHIN) and is basically a community based hardware and software system that brings medical information together letting healthcare providers share patient records and communicate securely. The value of the system is that it provides efficiencies and cost savings through reductions in paper-based communication.

Since 2005, Dr. Dan Kaelin (Vascular Surgery Associates) has led an executive team including Allen Byington (Electronet) and Zach Finn (Avocare) who meet weekly to personally spearhead the project. This group reports to a board of directors where Dr. Kaelin is chair and Sharon Roush (CEO for Capital Regional Medical Center) and Mark O’Bryant (CEO for Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare) are co-chairs. The Board of Directors (http://www.bbrhio.org/boardMembers.aspx) includes representatives from key community stakeholders that guide and provide governance for BBRHIO initiatives.

Through the successful combination of State grants (provided by AHCA) and in-kind contributions of time, products, and cash (provided by board members, Electronet, and Avocare) $2 million has been invested in the BBRHIO infrastructure and software. Volunteers from the BBRHIO Board have donated many hours of time to complete a number of exciting community focused projects including a unified Patient Intake Form and a unified Electronic Referral Form (DDC and TPCA have already begun piloting the referral system). Intense work has been accomplished on privacy, security and legal issues. The BBRHIO has been awarded a $9.6 million FCC grant to develop fiber-based connectivity to our surrounding rural counties. The software has been live since January 2008, with connectivity between Capital Regional Medical Center, Vascular Surgery Associates, Digestive Disease Clinic, and KWB Pathology Associates. Tallahassee Orthopedic Clinic, Tallahassee Primary Care Associates, Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare, Capital Health Plan, Southern Medical Group, Radiology Associates, Tallahassee ENT and Patients First are anticipated to go live in the next 3-6 months. ER doctors currently use the data that is now live on the BBRHIO.

As you can see we have been working on a lot over the past few years and are at point where you can get excited about this new community resource. We are currently positioned to be one of the few, if not the, leading health information exchange in the nation! As mentioned above we are in the process of completing the connections and rolling out services to our committed board members, which is anticipated to be completed sometime in October. At that point we will open the system to interested organizations community wide.

This is a very exciting time for the patients of this region. The efforts of the Health Information Exchange in this region will hopefully serve as an example to the rest of the state and the nation on how to make healthcare more efficient and as a direct byproduct improve the safety of the care delivered. Every person who provides or receives healthcare in this region will effected and we look forward to the participation of everyone.

Big Bend RHIO Board of Directors

Dan Kaelin, M.D., Chair
Mark O’Bryant, CEO, Co-chair, Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare
Sharon Roush, CEO, Co-chair, Capital Regional Medical Center
John Hogan, CEO, Capital Health Plan
Karen Wendland, Exec. Director, Capital Medical Society
Allen Byington, CEO, Electronet
Jerry Harris, M.D., KWB Pathology Associates
Randy Reese, M.D., Patients First
John Detelich, CEO, Radiology Associates of Tallahassee
Rob Lombardo, Director, Rural Medicaid Coalition of North Florida
Debra Sundberg, Southern Medical Group
Dr. Bill Law, President, Tallahassee Community College
Duncan Postma, M.D., Tallahassee ENT
Martin Shipman, President, Tallahassee Orthopedic Clinic
Tom Harrison, Tallahassee Primary Care Associates

You can learn more about the network, review a complete schedule of membership dues and associated services, and contact a representative to go ahead and reserves your membership at www.bbrhio.com. Thank you!