Industry giants might make a national HIE a reality. Source: Third Health IT Summit

AT&T, Microsoft and Covisint, a subsidiary of Compuware, have partnered in the development of health information exchange (HIE) for patients and practitioners in the United States.

The new HIE is designed to reduce costs and improve quality of care while putting patients in control of their medical records. It allows consumers using Microsoft HealthVault, a software- and service-based platform for storing and accessing personal health information, to share information with authorized physicians and healthcare providers connected to AT&T Healthcare Community Online, according to the companies.

A Virtual Private Network (VPN)-based portal, AT&T Healthcare Community Online is founded on two AT&T patents that enable electronic healthcare data exchange among existing systems of healthcare providers and physicians. The online community offers managed services, applications and authentication services and promotes the widespread adoption of health IT by providing authorized doctors, hospitals, pharmacies, labs and patients with access to test results, prescription records, best practices and medical histories.

The new HIE, enabled by Covisint’s On-Demand Healthcare Platform and layered on AT&T’s patented eHealth solutions and Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) network, shares information electronically and in a security-enhanced way across the continuum of care—from patient to provider communities such as HealthVault, HIEs and insurers.

The new exchange platform brings together the key elements required to establish comprehensive interoperability and collaboration communities for national, state and local health-information exchanges, enabling such applications as:

• e-prescribing;
• clinical messaging among healthcare providers;
• sharing high-density images, including x-rays, MRIs and CT scans;
• exchanging patient-aggregated information via portable health records, which provides patient profiles, medical history and prescriptions;
• uploading of data from home health devices such as blood pressure meters and glucometers, allowing for remote diagnostics and chronic disease monitoring and management; and
• a streamlined clinical and administrative process.

"This alliance focuses on the fundamental problems facing every healthcare interoperability initiative today: privacy, complexity and cost," said Brett Furst, vice president of Health Care for Covisint. "For the first time, institutions, communities and consumers can leverage a secure on-demand framework connecting patients and caregivers in a matter of days, rather than months—or even years."

The new HIE extends the capabilities announced in February by AT&T regarding Tennessee’s statewide eHealth information exchange, which is also secured by Covisint’s platform, the companies said.