Philadelphia, PA – November 2, 2020 – HealthShare Exchange (HSX), an industry leader in making electronic patient-care information available to the greater Philadelphia healthcare community, today announced that it is the recipient of an award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC). The award is under the Strengthening the Technical Advancement and Readiness of Public Health Agencies via Health Information Exchange (STAR HIE) cooperative agreement program. This program seeks to support state and local public health agencies in their efforts to respond to public health emergencies, including the COVID-19 pandemic. HSX is one of five organizations to receive up to $500,000 each from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act for the STAR HIE Program.
The cooperative agreement was awarded to five (5) Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) across the country that proposed a range of activities. Each recipient organization will improve HIE services so that public health agencies can better access, share and use health information during public health emergencies. These efforts will also support communities that are disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. HSX will use the funds from this program to increase its partnerships with local public health officials, to mitigate gaps in the Philadelphia region’s public health response to COVID-19 and to prepare for future public health emergencies, including disasters and pandemics such as COVID-19.
“HealthShare Exchange has supported local public health agencies throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, helping identify infected patients, supporting contact tracing and providing population-level information for situational awareness,” said Dr. Thomas Farley, City of Philadelphia Health Commissioner. “The STAR HIE Program award from ONC will help us continue supporting the Philadelphia area’s COVID-19 response, as well as allow us to apply the lessons learned from this pandemic to prepare for future events and ensure a seamless, coordinated response across the region.”
HSX will collaborate with public health agencies across the region to modernize systems, automate the delivery of COVID-19 data into public health information technology (IT) systems, and support functions like contact tracing and patient health information access. It will also use the ONC funds to support population health initiatives, increase assistance for public health clinics, engage with long-term care facilities, and automate health system capacity monitoring capabilities.
With more than 400 member organizations, HealthShare Exchange gathers and securely delivers electronic patient health information on more than 12 million patients throughout the Greater Philadelphia region. It links together the disparate electronic medical records (EMR) systems of hospitals, health systems, health plans and other healthcare stakeholders to support continuity of care throughout the community.
About HealthShare Exchange
HealthShare Exchange (HSX) is a nonprofit community-directed organization that gathers and makes electronic patient health information available securely at the point of care throughout the Greater Philadelphia/Delaware Valley area’s healthcare ecosystem. HSX links disparate electronic medical record (EMR) systems of hospitals, health systems and healthcare stakeholders across the continuum of care along with the clinical data of healthcare insurers for Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware. HSX services deliver real-time clinical information to our members, including a patient’s medical history as well as notifications to enable improved outcomes, care coordination and more cost-effective care for over 12 million patients. HSX is a HITRUST certified organization, a PA P3N certified Health Information Organization (HIO), a State of NJ Trusted Data Sharing Organization (TDSO) and is part of the national eHealth Exchange. For more information, visit https://www.healthshareexchange.org/ or follow us on Twitter (@HealthShareExch) and LinkedIn.