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Quality Health Network (QHN), a regional health information exchange facilitator, on Thursday held its annual Healthy Together Summit highlighting 20 years of service to Western Colorado and goals for the next 20 years. was held.
Health Information Exchange was created as a secure and efficient platform for sharing health data and coordinating patient care between different health systems and health care providers. HIE is a collaboration between St. Mary’s Regional Hospital, Community Hospitals, Rocky Mountain Health Plans, Hilltop Community Resources, and the Mesa County Physicians Independent Practice Association.
“Since 2004, we have exchanged more than 173 million messages and are growing,” said Mark Laseau, Executive Director and CEO of QHN. “If you think about it that way, we’re getting a lot of information that we wouldn’t have had if we weren’t all working together and sharing data for better care.”
The summit brought together a number of leaders in the medical field to share their experiences, innovative practices, and predictions about the future of community medicine and healthcare. This space for wellness organizations from different communities to share new information and collaborate is essential to ensure each organization has similar priorities and achieves community goals, Laseau said.
One of the keynote speakers, Kim Bimestefer, has served as executive director of the Colorado Office of Health Policy and Financing for more than five years and will discuss the major challenges in health care in Colorado, as well as some that are already underway or planned. explained the solution to the audience in detail. discussion.
Mr. Bimestefer primarily focuses on increasing health care costs and the need to address the social determinants of health, which are non-medical aspects of life that can impact overall health, such as access to education and geographic location. The importance was discussed.
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He said starter home prices in Mesa County have doubled between 2015 and 2022, with rents increasing 58% over the past few years while median household income has only increased slightly. , stated that housing affordability is one of the most relevant social determinants of health. It has increased by 38%.
“How do you take care of your health when you don’t have a roof over your head or are just worried about paying rent?” she asked.
Among other solutions and initiatives, Bimestefer said, empowering health care providers to prescribe community and government resources to address social determinants of health, rather than just prescribing a pill. , described a tool recently developed by QHN.
“This tool allows health care providers and community workers to prescribe programs,” she said. “So if a pregnant woman needs her WIC, (the doctor) will prescribe WIC. If she is food insecure, she will prescribe SNAP. If someone is housing insecure, they will prescribe Housing Vouchers. This is a game changer and QHN is responsible.”
Laseau then spoke about the future of QHN with Melissa Kotrys, CEO of Contexture, an HIE serving the rest of Colorado and parts of Arizona. Executives discussed their desire to partner the two HIEs and expand QHN’s 30,000 square mile coverage into both Colorado’s Front Range and Arizona.
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“We want to use data information and analytics to make people in our communities healthier and promote wellness. And (that’s going to work) because we have a lot of similarities. ,” Kotlis said.
Additional speakers included motivational speaker Craig Zablocki and various industry leaders who addressed topics such as artificial intelligence in healthcare and health information technology, and communicated the social determinants of health and the relationship between healthcare and child care. Speakers spoke throughout the day.
In between speakers, attendees were encouraged to learn about more than 25 different community health organizations through a resource fair. Although focused on community health and support, participants have a variety of specialties and organizations range from West Mountain Community Health Alliance to Marillac Health.
The resource fair was an opportunity for these health care organizations to raise awareness of their services and let attendees know how they can take advantage of their services across the state, Lasaw said.
“The reason we are bringing all of these resources together under one roof is because those serving the most vulnerable community members can understand what is available to them and make the most of these services. It’s important that we know how to use it to our advantage,” said Lasso.
