Chatting With Chuck Christian, VP of Technology & Engagement, IHIE, Chapter 2

At Indiana Health Information Exchange (IHIE), Chuck Christian has found what could possibly be a dream situation. Not just because he gets to catch up with the many “old friends” he made while serving as CIO at Good Samaritan for 20-plus years, but also because he’s at an organization with an outsourced data center — something he’s been looking for throughout his career. In this installment of our quarterly chat, Christian talks about what he hopes to bring to the table as VP of technology and engagement, how IHIE is working to achieve a long-term plan without losing sight of its main priority, what he thinks of the 21st Century Cures Act, and the importance of sharing best practices.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2



* Tackling pop health — “There’s really not a one size fits all.”

* IHIE’s joint replacement program

* Exchanging data with MHIN & HealthBridge

* Illinois’ foggy HIE landscape

* Creating a patient-centered data home — “Healthcare happens regionally.”

* The Indy 500 care challenge

* Heartland pilot — “We’re going to stress-test the standards.”

* ONC grant funding



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Bold Statements

What we’ve found in having a lot of conversations with our members around population health is there’s really not a one size fits all. It depends on their care models, the size of the organization, and if they’ve decided to go at-risk for certain parts of their business.

You read about all these very complex and complicated ways of moving data around, but I think we’ve found that healthcare happens regionally. You’re always going to have patients who are going to go to Mayo, Cleveland, or MD Anderson or some large health center — you’re always going to have those patients, but that’s not the norm. The norm is going to be around regional referral centers.

The treating physician only has the benefit of the information that the patient has with them in their head, or that their family member has. Wouldn’t it be great if that physician had access to the information that’s sitting wherever their HIE is?

That’s why we call it the patient centered data home; the data actually follows the patient in a pretty simple manner and it uses all the standard protocols.

We really appreciate them giving us that funding to move this forward. It’ll take some of the pressure off these very small, non-profit organizations.

Christian:  That was one of the components of the strategic plan. The other one was around population health. We have several ACOs in the area that we are working with and several clinically integrated networks as well where we’re helping them manage their patient population. They’re responsible for the care of that patient if they’re in one of the Medicare/Medicaid advantage plans, so they need to know pretty quickly where that patient is getting service — particularly if the patient is getting care outside of their network — so they can bring them back in and control those costs. And so what we’ve found in having a lot of conversations with our members around this thing called population health is there’s really not a one size fits all. It depends on their care models, the size of the organization, and if they’ve decided to go at-risk for certain parts of their business. Many have, and I think others will as well.

The other topic we’re having some conversations about is the joint replacement program, which actually started in April of this year. It was one of the CMMI demonstration projects. They call them voluntary, but you don’t get a chance to volunteer — you’re ‘volun-told.’ Indianapolis was one of those demonstration areas,