Press Releases

(Cleveland) – The MetroHealth System has joined the CliniSync Health Information Exchange (HIE), allowing it to connect to physicians, hospitals and other clinicians beyond Cuyahoga County and across the state.

CliniSync allows physicians and clinicians from different health systems to share information about the same patient electronically. This can speed up the process of communications, virtually eliminating the need for faxes, phone calls and letters when doctors and patients are waiting for critical test results or communicating with one another.

In addition, when medical information is shared across systems, a more comprehensive picture of a patient's health emerges, resulting in less duplicative testing and procedures, and ultimately, lower cost and better outcomes for patients.

"Joining the Ohio Health Information Partnership through CliniSync is the next logical step in our overall health information exchange strategy to provide higher quality, lower cost and more patient-centered healthcare," said David Kaelber, MD, PhD, Chief Medical Informatics Officer at MetroHealth.

MetroHealth joins 140 other hospitals in Ohio that are committed to the CliniSync network. Currently, 38 hospitals are "live" and able to share patient health information, such as test results, radiology reports, care summaries, medications histories, and other information that is vital when different doctors are treating the same patient.

"MetroHealth performs hundreds of health information exchanges per day with other healthcare systems using the same electronic health record," Kaelber added. "Joining ClinicSync will allow MetroHealth to exchange information with healthcare systems that have different electronic health records also."

"We're excited that MetroHealth is joining because this hospital system truly represents a patient population with fewer resources but most in need of care – the target of this federal and state initiative to use health information technology to assist providers in providing and coordinating health care in Ohio and the nation," said Dan Paoletti, Chief Executive Officer of the Ohio Health Information Partnership, the non-profit that manages CliniSync.

"Coordinated through the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, the health information technology funding of $14.9 million for Ohio's health information exchange can increase interoperability among different electronic health records systems and can streamline the flow of work in practices and hospitals, producing real-time results," Paoletti said.

More than 1,500 physicians in 236 practices are committed to CliniSync, with 154 of those practices "live" on the network, where they can get test results and reports directly from hospitals and communicate with one another through secure emails and referrals. As hospitals go through the implementation process and go live, practices in those areas can then connect and take advantage of electronic exchange.

Beginning in 2014, CliniSync will enable physicians to search for and find a longitudinal health record on a patient, as long as that patient gives consent and the authorized clinician is a CliniSync member and has a treatment relationship with the patient.