During 2008, the New Mexico Health Information Collaborative (NMHIC), which is staffed and operated by Lovelace Clinic Foundation (LCF), had a series of significant accomplishments. LCF/NMHIC implemented a robust network infrastructure, established network interfaces with major health care provider organizations, and successfully demonstrated the exchange of test patient information over the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN). These live demonstrations involved nineteen health information networks, including seven states, Kaiser Permanente, the Veterans Health Administration, the Department of Defense Military Health System, and other major health information networks.
On December 15 and 16, 2008, at the NHIN Forum in Washington, D.C., LCF/NMHIC achieved additional national recognition:
NMHIC demonstrated transfer of live (but fictitious) emergency responder information from Albuquerque Ambulance to the emergency department at Presbyterian Hospital, and to the New Mexico Department of Health. The presenters in this demonstration included: Dr. Robert White and Dave Perry of LCF/NMHIC, Mike Jambrosic and Dr. Phil Froman of Albuquerque Ambulance, and Dr. Chad Smelser of the New Mexico Department of Health. The participating organizations in the demonstration included Albuquerque Ambulance, Presbyterian Healthcare Services, TriCore Reference Labs, the New Mexico Department of Health, Taos Holy Cross Hospital, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Long Beach Network for Health, and the Health Information Exchange of New York
Also, NMHIC participated in the demonstration of the Wounded Warrior Use Case, along with the Military Health System of the Department of Defense, the Veterans Health Administration, and several other regional health information exchange networks.
NMHIC’s Director of Health Informatics, Jeff Blair, was featured in three sessions: 1) summarizing the “lessons learned” from the NHIN demonstrations, 2) describing the process of developing a community network business plan, and 3) describing how specifications for NHIN data content were developed. Mr. Blair was also chosen to serve on a workgroup that will define the governance and operations of the NHIN.
On September 23, 2008, Dr. Robert White, Director of Medical Informatics at Lovelace Clinic Foundation (LCF) used the NMHIC health information exchange network to access a fictitious patient record from a healthcare provider in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and then gathered important additional information about the same patient from the Long Beach Network for Health (LBNH) in California. The audience for this demonstration included Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt, the American Health Information Community (AHIC), and all those across the country who watched the demonstration as it was broadcast live over the internet. The health care organizations that participated with NMHIC in the September demonstration of the Nationwide Health Information Network Trial Implementation included Presbyterian Healthcare Services and TriCore Reference Labs.
The New Mexico Health Information Collaborative (NMHIC) is the name of New Mexico's rapidly growing health information exchange (HIE) network and the community collaborative that has supported its development with time and funding. The collaborative includes important New Mexico stakeholders representing health care providers, payers, employers, state agencies and consumers. NMHIC was created in 2004, and continues to be fully staffed and operated by Lovelace Clinic Foundation (LCF). LCF is a 501(c)(3) non-profit applied health research organization.
