About HealthInsight

HealthInsight is a private, non-profit, community-based organization dedicated to improving health and health care, that is composed of locally governed organizations in Nevada, New Mexico and Utah.

HealthInsight is a recognized leader in:

• Defining and encouraging healthcare value, transparency and public reporting
• Health information technology initiatives
• Payment reform efforts
• Human factors science research and application
• Quality assurance activities

The HealthInsight enterprise holds contracts and grants and is certified in key areas of healthcare improvement:

• Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research Chartered Value Exchange (Nevada, Utah)
• Community Health Information Exchange (Nevada)
• Health Information Technology Regional Extension Center (Nevada, Utah; New Mexico subcontractor)
• Medicaid External Quality Review Organization (New Mexico)
• Medicare Quality Improvement Organization (Nevada, New Mexico, Utah)
• Network for Regional Healthcare Improvement (NRHI) Collaborative (Nevada, Utah)
• Nevada Hospital Engagement Network
• Prescription Improvement Coalition (New Mexico)
• Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Aligning Forces for Quality (New Mexico)
• URAC Accreditation (Nevada)
• Utah Beacon Community Program
• UtahHealthScape (Utah)

The HealthInsight Value Program

Chartered Value Exchanges – The Nevada & Utah Partnerships for Value-driven Healthcare

HealthInsight is the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Chartered Value Exchange (CVE) in Nevada and Utah. The CVE is a multi-stakeholder collaborative effort that includes healthcare purchasers, health plans, providers, and consumers. It is actively working to advance transparency of health care quality, promote adoption of health information technology, and align financial incentives with quality and improvement goals.

The HealthInsight Value Program is working with a diverse set of community stakeholders to lead, develop and implement appropriate change around the value and transparency of health care. HealthInsight has identified the value proposition (quality/cost=value) as a key strategy to improving the overall health of our communities. The Value Program’s key agenda strategies include:

1. Aligning Healthcare Payment with Quality
2. Reporting Provider Performance
3. Engaging Consumers
4. Promoting and Advancing Health Information Technology

Click here for more information about the Nevada Partnership for Value-driven Healthcare.

Click here for more information about the Utah Partnership for Value-driven Healthcare.

Health Information Exchanges

HealthInsight has long supported health information exchange (HIE) efforts. In Utah, HealthInsight was a founding member of the Utah Health Information Network (UHIN) administrative data exchange, which has been active for over a decade. UHIN’s clinical HIE (CHIE) has been built and clinical data is beginning to be exchanged. HealthInsight staff contributed in many areas of its development, including vendor selecting for the CHIE, governance design, communication strategy, provider engagement, evaluation design and resolving political issues. Marc Bennett, President and CEO of HealthInsight is the current chair of the UHIN board.

In Nevada, HealthInsight collaborated with statewide stakeholders to incorporate and launch a community-based health information exchange so that Nevada providers can improve the timeliness, quality and coordination of patient care. HealtHIE Nevada will enable physicians to securely receive and share real-time patient information at the point of care. The data will come directly from their electronic health records (EHRs), without the use of specialized hardware in their practice. This includes referrals, laboratory and radiology results, prescriptions, and other key patient information that will be of value to physicians providing direct patient care.

Regional Extension Centers

HealthInsight operates the Health Information Technology Regional Extension Center for Nevada and Utah and New Mexico serves its state as a major subcontractor. Designated by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology in February 2010, Regional Extension Centers were created out of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 for the purpose of improving the quality and value of health care throughout the country. As the Regional Extension Center for Nevada and Utah, HealthInsight is assisting 1500 providers, through hands-on, one-on-one customized assistance, in selecting and effectively using electronic health records to improve the health care they provide to their patients. HealthInsight New Mexico is a major subcontractor and founding partner of New Mexico’s Regional Extension Center, which is assisting 1050 primary care providers.

Click here for more information about the Regional Extension Center for Nevada and Utah.

Medicare Quality Improvement Organization

HealthInsight has held contracts to serve as federally contracted Medicare Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs) for Nevada since 1988, New Mexico since 1984 (as New Mexico Medical Review Association until 2011), and for Utah since 1971. Under direction of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), QIOs work with consumers, health care providers, health plans, stakeholders and other partners to refine care delivery systems to ensure that patients get the right care at the right time. QIOs also help improve the quality of care for Medicare beneficiaries by reviewing beneficiary complaints about quality of care and using the complaints as a basis for implementing targeted quality improvement initiatives with individual health care providers. Under the current QIO Program initiatives, QIOs will be working under the Medicare program as conveners of statewide learning and action networks to drive substantial improvements in measures of health and health care that are tightly aligned with Partnership for Patients goals.

Click here for more about Medicare’s nationwide QIO program.

Nevada Hospital Engagement Network

In December, 2011, the Nevada Hospital Association (NHA) was selected by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to serve as the Hospital Engagement Network (HEN) contractor for the State of Nevada. HealthInsight is a major sub-contractor to the NHA in this three-year effort. HealthInsight New Mexico also serves as a sub-contractor on the New Mexico Hospital Engagement Network.

The HEN is a national program, supporting hospitals in pursuit of Partnership for Patient goals. HEN contractors are charged with providing technical assistance, designing and conducting training events and learning sessions, and supporting community collaboration for hospitals targeting a diverse set of ten clinical focus areas, with concurrent support for deepening organizational leadership investment in and culture for quality. Our program in training and technical assistance will help participants develop capacity in strategies for managing the fundamental causes of patient harm. Learning will be facilitated through an applied improvement program rooted in the targeted clinical focus areas.

Utah Beacon Community Program

Since 2010, HealthInsight has served as one of 17 Beacon Communities across the United States. Funded by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, the Utah Beacon Community Program, “Improving Care through Connectivity and Collaboration (IC³),” is leveraging health information technology to create dramatic and quantifiable improvements in healthcare quality, cost, and efficiency. IC³ is a community collaborative effort led by HealthInsight and representing Salt Lake, Summit, and Tooele Counties (the Salt Lake Metropolitan Statistical Area or MSA) in Utah. Key partners working together in this effort include the Intermountain Healthcare, the University of Utah, the Utah Department of Health, the Utah Health Information Network, and the Utah Medical Association.

Click here for more information about the Utah IC³ Beacon Community.

Prescription Improvement Coalition

The New Mexico Prescription Improvement Coalition (NMPIC) was established in 2006 and is facilitated by HealthInsight New Mexico. NMPIC has worked since that time to improve the safety of prescription drug delivery and encourage the adoption of electronic prescribing (e-prescribing) and medication therapy management (MTM) services in New Mexico. The coalition involves representatives from throughout the health care community that have a stake in safe and appropriate medication delivery in New Mexico. Current NMPIC projects include developing and spreading statewide clinical guidelines to avoid potentially inappropriate medications in older adults and a number of activities focused on reducing prescription drug abuse in several New Mexico communities.

Click here for more information on NMPIC.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Aligning Forces for Quality

Albuquerque, New Mexico, is one of 16 communities in the nation participating in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s (RWJF) Aligning Forces for Quality (AF4Q) initiative under a RWJF grant held by HealthInsight New Mexico. This initiative brings local health plans, hospitals, health care providers, businesses, and consumers together to transform health care in local communities by driving public reporting of evidence-based quality of care data, improving health care quality, improving health care efficiency and reducing racial and ethnic disparities while reducing costs.

Click here for more information about the Aligning Forces for Quality.

Click here for more information on Albuquerque’s Aligning Forces for Quality Initiative.

URAC Accreditation

HealthInsight Nevada has held URAC accreditation since 2009. URAC, an independent, nonprofit organization, is well-known as a leader in promoting health care quality through its accreditation, education and measurement programs. URAC offers a wide range of quality benchmarking programs and services that keep pace with the rapid changes in the health care system, and provide a symbol of excellence for organizations to validate their commitment to quality and accountability.

UtahHealthScape

After working with community stakeholders for over three years, in 2011 HealthInsight launched www.UtahHealthScape.org, a comprehensive healthcare quality data reporting website, to providers, health plans and the public, representing a significant step forward in health care transparency. The website rates performance for hospitals, health plans, and in 2012 will also include clinic-level quality measures. It provides consumers with a directory of Utah providers, listing their characteristics and service offerings, and quality of care data and patient experience/satisfaction survey results for health plans and hospitals.

Click here for more information about Utah HealthScape.