November 9, 2024
20 years of connecting in health care | Lifestyle

The regional health information exchange facilitator, Quality Health Network (QHN), held its annual Healthier Together Summit on Thursday, focusing on its 20 years of serving western Colorado and its goals for the next 20 years.

The health information exchange was created as a secure, efficient platform to share health data and coordinate patient care between different health systems and providers. The HIE was founded through a collaboration between St. Mary’s Regional Hospital, Community Hospital, Rocky Mountain Health Plans, Hilltop Community Resources and the Mesa County Physicians Independent Practice Association.

“We’ve exchanged over 173 million messages since 2004, and we continue to grow,” QHN Executive Director and CEO Marc Lassaux said. “If you think about that, it’s a lot of information that wouldn’t have otherwise been available without all of us working together to share data for better care.”

The summit featured an array of leaders in the medical field who shared their experiences, innovative practices and predictions related to the future of community health and health care. According to Lassaux, this venue for different community wellness organizations to share new information and collaborate is essential in ensuring they have similar priorities and achieve community goals.

One keynote speaker, Kim Bimestefer, has been the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing’s Executive Director for more than five years and provided the audience with an in-depth look at the major challenges in Colorado health care and some solutions already underway or in discussion.

Bimestefer primarily discussed the increasing expenses of health care and the importance of addressing social determinants of health, which are essentially non-medical aspects of one’s life that can impact overall health, such as access to education and geographical location.

She said housing affordability is one of the most pertinent social determinants of health, as the price of a starter home in Mesa County doubled between 2015 and 2022 and rental costs increased 58% in the past few years, all while the median household income has only risen 38%.

”How are you supposed to take care of your health when you don’t have a roof over your head or you’re worried about just paying rent?” she asked.

Among other solutions and initiatives, Bimestefer discussed a tool recently developed by QHN that enables health workers to prescribe community and government resources to address social determinants of health, rather than solely prescribing pills.

“This tool will (give) providers and community workers the ability to prescribe programs,” she said. “That means when a pregnant woman needs WIC, (the physician) prescribes it; when a person is food insecure, prescribe SNAP; when a person is insecure with housing, prescribe a housing voucher. This is a game changer, and QHN is responsible.”

Lassaux later spoke on the future of QHN alongside Melissa Kotrys, CEO of Contexture, the HIE that services the rest of Colorado and parts of Arizona. The executives discussed hopes of affiliating the two HIEs, expanding QHN’s 30,000 square-mile coverage into both Colorado’s Front Range and Arizona.

“We want to use data information and analysis to make individuals in our communities healthier, promote wellness, and (it would work well because) we’ve got a lot of similarities,” Kotrys said.

Additional speakers presented throughout the day, including motivational speaker Craig Zablocki and leaders in different industries who tackled topics such as artificial intelligence in health care and health care information technology, communicating social determinants of health and the connection between health care and childcare.

Between speakers, attendees were encouraged to get to know more than 25 different community health organizations through a resource fair. While focused on community wellness and outreach, the participants varied in specialty, with organizations ranging from the West Mountain Regional Health Alliance to Marillac Health.

According to Lassaux, the resource fair was an opportunity for these health organizations to raise awareness of their services and inform attendees how they can be utilized across the state.

“We’re bringing all these resources under one roof (because) it’s important that the people serving our most vulnerable community members know what’s available and how to best utilize these services,” Lassaux said.

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