“The Indian Health Service (IHS) has begun a multi-year health IT modernization initiative to replace its homegrown EHR platform with a private vendor solution…”
“At the 2022 virtual ONC annual meeting on April 13, Howard Hayes, MD, chief medical information officer for IHS, discussed the agency’s impetus for its health IT modernization effort.”
“Hayes emphasized that IHS and its federal partners have been ahead of the rest of the industry in terms of health IT for decades. In 1984, IHS developed its homegrown RPMS EHR system in partnership with the VA.”
“Significant advances in health IT since then prompted IHS to modernize its platform, Hayes said.”
“‘Even though the RPMS EHR is a certified system and has remained a certified system since the beginning of the meaningful use era, the continuously evolving technology and regulatory environment is increasingly challenging,’ he said. ‘The IHS is a healthcare organization. We’re not by nature a development shop.'”
“‘Fortunately, the health IT industry has caught up, and we know that there are modern, capable EHR solutions out there that can be leveraged to truly modernize health IT infrastructure in the IHS,’ Hayes said. ‘We have an outdated technology stack that’s very challenging to support. It’s distributed in hundreds of databases around the country, resulting in little interoperability between them.'”
“Hayes noted that IHS is looking forward to implementing a modernized technology architecture with better interfaces for providers and patients and true interoperability with partners on different systems…” Read the full article here.
Source: IHS Health IT Modernization Focuses on Interoperability Best Practices – By Hannah Nelson, April 25, 2022. EHR Intelligence.
