solved Draft a reply to another students original discussion board post.
Draft a reply to another students original discussion board post. The instructions to the post are as follows: The State HIE Cooperative Agreement Program grantees are required to monitor and track statewide implementation, adoption, and transactions of exchange mechanisms that they implement directly or enable through funding, technical assistance, marketplaces, etc. to support the meaningful use of health information technology. Research the current state of HIE across the United States through the link below and provide a response summarizing your findings related to your state of residence. Provide a summary of your findings and any insights you have gained in the review of the information:https://www.healthit.gov/topic/onc-hitech-programs/state-health-information-exchangeHere is the students post that your are responding to: Carrie Moore Health Information Exchange: Pennsylvania’s Regional Extension CentersCOLLAPSEHealth Information Exchange: Pennsylvania’s Regional Extension CentersHealth information exchange (HIE) is, according to Braunstein (2014), “essentially digital plumbing†(p. 55) that allows patient health information to be shared between providers while still maintaining confidentiality. It is also what makes population health monitoring possible, and that type of metric is what accountable care organizations (ACOs) and incentive programs like Meaningful Use and initiatives from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) are based on. At the state level, efforts to expand and increase the exchange of health information is funded by the State HIE Cooperative Agreement Program (healthit.gov, n.d.). In March of 2010, all states in the union and eligible territories received award amounts that were based on population. Although more than half of all office-based physicians were already using EHRs by that time (Deas & Solomon, 2012), this funding encouraged the rest to come onboard and for all parties to strive for Meaningful Use achievements.Implementation and Adoption As part of the HIE Cooperative Agreement Program, Pennsylvania’s Governor’s Office of Health Care Reform received an award of $17,140,466 (healthit.gov, n.d.). As the state-designated entity, this office was then tasked with using these funds to develop technical services, governance, policies, and operational mechanisms for increase health information exchange. One of the most significant ways that the state of Pennsylvania is encouraging the expansion of HIE is through its PA REACH program. This program created two regional extension centers, one in eastern Pennsylvania and one in Western Pennsylvania, to provide assistance as needed to physicians and practices venturing into the world of electronic health records (EHRs) and attempting to qualify for Meaningful Use benchmarks. As the previously cited authors state, “an HIE organization does not establish itself as a neutral, trusted entity overnight†(Deas & Solomon, 2012, p. 167). PA REACH, however, has achieved this level of trustworthiness by providing reliable assistance across the state.Two specific “success stories†can be found on the healthit.gov (n.d.) website which describe practices that accessed assistance from the PA REACH eastern branch and were able to meet the Stage 1 requirements for Meaningful Use within their first year of EHR usage. The first example is a solo practitioner in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. This physician went into EHR adoption expecting the worst but ended up pleasantly surprised thanks to the ever-present support from his PA REACH project coordinator. The second success story was from a hospital that belongs to the health system of this post’s author, St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children in Philadelphia. The need for cultural and workflow changes were major challenges during initial EHR adoption at St. Christopher’s, but the PA REACH team helped staff learn to customize reporting structures within their selected EHR to meet their specific needs. Although both examples resulted in the ultimate success of reaching Meaningful Use Stage 1, there were additional successes and lessons learned. At St. Christopher’s, new functions of the EHR resulted in reduced wait times by fifteen minutes per patient and a fourteen percent reduction in no-show rates. For the solo practitioner, his office receives less questions about billing post-EHR implementation, although he was unable to maintain normal patient volumes during the “go-live†phase of implementation due to the learning curve for staff.Biblical Integration and Conclusion In conclusion, the establishment of two well-respected regional extension centers in the state of Pennsylvania have played a significant part in widespread EHR adoption and Meaningful Use achievements. Studies have shown that in states where regional extension centers were not created until much later, practices are more likely to fail Meaningful Use audits (Lehmann et al., 2018). These authors provide the example of practices in Georgia which often failed the security risk assessment portion of the audit due to a lack of training that, for other states, came from the regional extension centers which remained nonexistent in Georgia. The importance of the establishment of regional extension centers as part of the HIE Cooperative Agreement Program cannot be understated. Per the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, “regional extension centers assisted more than 147,000 clinicians through 2013, with more than 85% of those providers live on an EHR†(Shanholtzer & Ozanich, 2016, p. 70). Physicians and staff were largely scared and apprehensive about the massive changes required during EHR transitions, but these programs eased the pain. Investing funds into helping others, especially during times of stress, is a biblical concept. Hebrews 6:10 reminds Christians that God “will not forget your work and the love you have shown Him as you have helped His people and continue to help them†(Holy Bible, New International Version, 1978/2011). Providing help in times of need, regardless of the stressor or the type of assistance, is a God-honoring activity, and in the case of the regional extension centers in Pennsylvania, it resulted in impressive achievements.ReferencesBraunstein, M. L. (2014). Contemporary Health Informatics. American Health Information Management Association.Deas, T. M., & Solomon, M. R. (2012). Health information exchange: Foundation for better care. Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, 76(1), 163-168. https://www.doi.org/10.1016/j.gie.2012.03.1406Lehmann, C. U., Waldren, S. E., & Kuhn, T. (2018). Incorrectly performed meaningful use audits hurt small practices. Applied Clinical Informatics, 9(1), 34–36. https://www.doi.org/10.1055/s-0037-1620256Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. (2019, April 29). State Health Information Exchange. Retrieved March 31, 2021, from ONC HITECH Programs: https://www.healthit.gov/topic/onc-hitech-programs/state-health-information-exchangeNew International Version Bible. (2011). The NIV Bible. https://www.thenivbible.com (Original work published 1978)Shanholtzer, M.B. & Ozanich, G. (2016). Health Information Management and Technology (1st ed.). McGraw Hill.Key points the instructor laid out when posting: I wanted to bring some little things to light to help increase your score:1. Integrating biblical references is not adding a scripture at the end of the assignment. You are to find a biblical reference that correlates to the topic and integrate that into the conversation.2. APA formatting: Using headers are part of APA and it helps me identify topics, in-text citation needs to be reviewed, if you need to upload a Word document to show your format I urge you to do so, and peer reviews are to be in APA formatting as well.3. Spelling/Grammar: please refer to the tools I posted in week 1 for assistance.4. If you do not have access to the textbook(s) for this course, I recommend getting access through connect. 5. Ensure you are including all the elements of the instructions for the assignment