Corey Zeigler, CIO, Fort Drum Regional Health Planning Organization, Chapter 2

If you think your organization has a hard time gaining access to data, trying working with the military. For organizations like Fort Drum, it has long been a struggle to provide clinicians with updated health records of military members because of the firewalls that exist. But finally, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, says Corey Zeigler, whose organization is participating in a pilot that could finally break down those walls. In this interview, he discusses the unique operating model that he believes will position Fort Drum well for the future; the governance challenges that come when hospitals aren’t owned; and how his team is leveraging an HIE to pull together data from multiple EHRs. Zeigler also talks about the organization’s population health journey, his military background, and what it’s like to get outside the four walls of the hospital.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2



* DoD HIE pilot — “It strengthens our integration with the military.”

* Military firewalls — “They’re shy about directly connecting with anyone.”

* A blueprint for integrated care

* Eyeing population health

* Data access hurdles — “It’s going to be a key driver as we go forward.”

* Leveraging EHR-generated reports to present “a complete picture”

* Focus on “where we can provide the biggest impact.”



LISTEN NOW USING THE PLAYER BELOW OR CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO OUR iTUNES PODCAST FEED

Bold Statements

We’re committed to supporting them in that we’re trying to avoid duplicative work of building private HIEs or trying to circumvent the RHIO. If it’s in their business model to provide the services, they’re always our first go-to.

The military is fairly shy about directly connecting to anyone, and so being able to securely and reliably exchange information with the military to pull them into our healthcare system, or us into theirs, is fantastic, and it really strengthens our integration with the military in the community.

Now many of the other installations that have healthcare facilities are looking at this model because we’re able to provide very high quality care for the soldiers and their families at a fraction of the cost of maintaining their own infrastructure and facilities on post.

We have to be able to show them and let them use that data, but not the data that they’re not authorized to see. I think that’s going to be a key driver as we go forward in communities like ours that aren’t on one system or in a fully integrated network. When you end up with all of these separately owned and operated facilities with separate payers, it forces you into this model.

We’re gathering flat file extracts from each of the ambulatory EHRs — we’d like to use the standard base exchange or the CCDs, but what we have found is that all the data that is needed to run these measures, the specific data elements, many times they’re not in the CCDs, so we wouldn’t be able to report on those if we didn’t go back and do manual extracts.

Gamble:  Obviously a lot of HIEs have had issues with sustainability but in your case this is one where you really need it for getting all this data together. Is it the funding model that’s helped it to sustain over the years?

Zeigler:  They’ve tried a couple different models. For a while they were receiving funding from the payers on a per inpatient admission standpoint to augment their funding. When that ceased, New York State picked up a lot of their operational cost. It is a tough model from a sustainability standpoint, but I think we’re committed to supporting them in that we’re trying to avoid duplicative work of building private HIEs or trying to circumvent the RHIO.