IHE

The team at Outcome Healthcare is well-versed in IHE standards and has ample experience developing systems in accordance with IHE standards.

One of the most important processes for HIE’s is the Document Query and Document Retrieval. When performed successfully, a hospital is able to query and generate a patient’s medical summary which they then retrieve via a response for a subsequent retrieval message. While helping countless participants query and retrieve patient data, our developers have built tools to ensure a participant does not receive their own data and risk creating duplicate entries. Additionally, we have implemented code that can allow a participant to determine how they want to receive patient data; whether they want to receive a single summary document that is generated or if they would like to receive all documents received from other data sources for the given patient. Finally, we have developed infrastructure that can add additional data into the patient summary via API calls to the Controlled Substance Utilization Review and Evaluation System (CURES) and the California Immunization Registry (CAIR). All of these tools greatly help hospitals and clinics to confidently know they are getting complete and accurate patient data every time they query.

While a document query and retrieval process allows for a participant to receive patient data, it is equally important that they are able to send patient data; they do so by sending a Provide and Register message (PNR). A PNR message consists of a patient’s Continuity of Care Document (CCD) wrapped in a SOAP envelope. The CCD contains a patient’s entire clinical summary and the SOAP envelope provides additional information that allows an IHE to store the entire PNR as a document. It is important when receiving PNRs that there is an extensive understanding of how the SOAP envelope and the CCD function in order to ensure that they are being ingested and stored properly. Our team has had to identify and fix many discrepancies over the years while onboarding clients; a PNR message has many distinct requirements in order to meet IHE standards and we make sure they are met. Not only do we verify the PNR message meets IHE standards, but we also help filter out incomplete and low-quality data that might be present in the patient summary. These filters are completely customizable to a participant’s unique needs.

The other common IHE messages we have worked at Outcome Healthcare are PIX and PDQ messages. A PIX message can be a query, a new patient registry record, or an update to a patient registry record, while a PDQ message is a patient demographics query. Before sending a PNR or a Document Query a system will want to verify that the patient in question exists in the HIE. This will sometimes be done via a precursory PIX or PDQ message. If the patient is not found, it prevents the participant from sending additional messages that can cause potential strain on their system. Therefore, it is important to ensure that the response sent to the participant accurately articulates whether that patient exists in the current system. Once again, our team has built infrastructure to ensure proper communication between participants and HIEs via PIX and PDQ messages.

Overall Outcome Healthcare has an extensive understanding of IHE standards and how to apply them to the various healthcare message types and data structures. We are capable of navigating very intricate, dense messages and isolating errors that either preventing messages from processing or causing data to ingest unexpectedly. If additional development work is needed to either add to the process or fix complicated issues, there is no better team to put your trust in. From start to finish we will help make sure that IHE standards are met and that the communication between systems works as envisioned.