NOVA RHIO

Infrastructure Committee

Minutes:  Friday, October 20

Attendence

Name		Organization	Oct 6	Oct 20
Geoff	Brown	INOVA		X
Mike	Cokenour	Red Cross	X
Mike	Corrigan	IEEE USA		X
Rim	Cothren	Northrop Grumman
John	Eichensehr	Quest Diagnostics	X	X
Angela	Falletti	Siemens	X
Dr. Kenneth	Geoly	INOVA
John	George	CGI-AMS		X
Jerome	Gibbon	IEEE
Marion	Greenfield	Virginia Department of Health	X
Wren	Griffith	Northern Virginia Training Center	X	X
Raymond	Henry	CSC
David	Hollins	HCA	X	X
Rebecca	Little	Medicity	X
Bryan	Majors	Rocky Run Family Medicine
Sharon	Martin	Virginia Hospital Center	X
Jim	Oakes	Health Care Information Consultants		X
Cathy	Pumphrey	Fairfax-Falls Church Community Services Board
Terri	Raley	CSC (representing Raymond Henry)	X
Bruce	Savage		X
Elizabeth	Smith	E. Smith Consulting
David	Stewart	IBM		X
Helayne	Sweet	Health eShare Technologies		X
Lauren	White	Bearing Point
David	Crutchfield	Virginia Hospital Center
Salvi	Mugol	Virginia Hospital Center
Ex-Officio
Auffret	J.P.	GMU		X

Agenda and Minutes

1. Review items from previous minutes:

·        Best Practices – In order to make recommendations about the approach we should take in the NV RHIO, the committee wants to take full advantage of the experience of current RHIOs in determining best practices. Specific areas discussed included patient information releases (to be both compliant with HIPAA and to meet the goals of the RHIO) and the architecture of the data storage and update process. If possible, the committee would like to have representatives of “success stories” in each of these areas make a presentation

 to the committee and to be available to respond to questions. In the meantime, the committee will review the existing RHIOs with which they are familiar to get candidates for best practice presentations in the two areas discussed (and potentially other areas as well) and to review the available best practice information in the event we must make do with a paper analysis.

·        NV RHIO goals and scenarios – The committee remains dependent on the other committees and the steering committee for inputs to determine the interoperability requirements and the required infrastructure. For the interim, the committee will review the NOVHIC grant application for goals, and the other committee minutes and other communications (discussed below) for requirements. Based on input from JP Auffret, we will consider infrastructure scenarios at several potential funding levels. The NOVHIC grant application has been sent to the committee. The committee minutes have been posted on the website: http://nvrhio.gmu.edu/.

2. Relationships with other committees

·        Finance – Key information needed from the finance committee is the range of potential funding levels for the first few years of the RHIO. As part of the assessment and inventory of the existing infrastructure, the Infrastructure committee will attempt to determine where there may be cost reductions due to existing capabilities.

·        Outreach and Education – Key information needed from the Outreach committee is the goals the NV community is interested in achieving and the goals the community would accept. The committee noted that there is a Federal AHRQ survey that has been released asking for this type of information which may be of use to the Outreach committee.

·        Legal Documents – Key information needed from the Legal committee is the expected scope of a RHIO patient (or personal) information release (which in turn would be based on the findings of the Outreach committee). The    Infrastructure committee discussed the potential for a flexible patient information release form.

There is a range of information that (if released appropriately) could be of benefit to individuals or groups. In addition to information released between different care providers of the individual patient, information released for public health or research purposes could be of benefit to both the individual and society. The release form should at least allow the individual to release information for such purposes on a voluntary basis.

Conversely, there is a range of information that may harm an individual if released inappropriately. Certain categories of information (for example, psychiatric information, illegal drug use or drug and alcohol dependency, and genetic disorders) will need to be treated with extreme care, both in the system

and on any consent form. The level of concern over information associated with other pre-existing conditions may depend on the status of the individual. In some cases, for example Medicare recipients and military and civilian Federal retirees, health care is guaranteed, and individuals may be willing to release such data for a broader range of uses than others without such a guarantee might wish to permit.