Laboratory
In 2011, the Agency for Health Care Administration (Agency) received direction from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) to work with national, independent, and hospital labs in regards to participating in the Florida HIE. The following page focuses specifically on outreach to laboratories in regards to participation in the Florida Health Information Exchange (Florida HIE) services for both Direct Secure Messaging (DSM) and Patient Look-Up (PLU).
Lab Message: The Florida HIE offers opportunities for labs to improve services to current and future customers. DSM provides secure messaging capabilities which allow physicians to securely share lab results with other treating physicians and allow labs to send results and other information electronically to ordering and copied physicians. PLU provides a network through which participants can electronically share data including lab results using a continuity of care document (CCD) format.
Outreach Objectives
The objective of the Lab outreach is to determine what opportunities exist for Florida’s medical and lab communities to securely communicate and facilitate the promotion and adoption of the Florida HIE. Specific objectives include:
1) Analyze lab work and data flow and develop specific use cases
2) Analyze environment and identify potential participants
3) Implement Direct in which clinical labs will send results to ordering or copied providers
4) Establish PLU network outreach in which participants can share lab data
5) Negotiate with national labs for participation in PLU network and DSM
Lab Outreach Approach
In outreaching to the labs, a key message to express is the technical architecture of the federated model of the Florida HIE. The goal is to connect the labs through DSM and PLU as sources of lab data. It is not the current plan of the Florida HIE to build a repository to store lab results. The goal is to act as a conduit that allows participants to securely connect and exchange health information including lab results and other lab communications as appropriate.
Target Audiences
There are three main types of labs that process the majority of medical specimens:
1) Hospital laboratories that are attached to a hospital and perform tests on patients and other referrals.
2) Independent (or community) laboratories that receive samples from general practitioners, insurance companies, clinical research sites and other health clinics for analysis.
3) National laboratories that can receive samples from general practitioners, other labs, insurance companies, clinical research sites and other health clinics for analysis. The two predominate national labs, Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp, also have facilities that can collect specimens directly from patients under a provider’s order.
Collaborative Efforts
In order to facilitate outreach efforts the partnering with stakeholders will be necessary. Both the Agency and the HIE vendor (Harris) will meet with and promote laboratory participation in DSM and PLU through the cooperation of several entities. These bodies include but are not limited to: