EMS Interoperability Software Company Picks MedAllies as QHIN
Beyond Lucid Technologies (BLT), a software company that provides real-time information sharing among ambulances, hospitals and public health, has selected MedAllies as its Qualified Health Information Network (QHIN) partner under the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA).
Through this collaboration, emergency medical services (EMS) and medical transportation providers using any NEMSIS v3-compliant patient care record (PCR) system will be able to leverage Beyond Lucid’s “prehospital pipes” – the Mediview Beacon Prehospital Health Information Exchange – to obtain key patient data even prior to arrival at the patient’s side, and to share potentially life-saving patient information with healthcare facilities prior to patient transfer.
Recently, interoperability solutions company MedAllies was designated as a QHIN. The goal of TEFCA is for QHINs to connect directly to each other to ensure interoperability between the networks they represent, enabling healthcare stakeholders to securely and reliably share accurate patient data, driving more informed patient-care decisions.
“The statistics are clear but concerning. This year marks a decade since BLT became the very first company to certify on NEMSIS v3, a modern mobile medical data standard designed for interoperability. Yet some of America’s largest hospital systems and largest ambulance and fire services still exchange zero information in real-time or in formats that EHRs and HIEs cannot consume, either on the way to the hospital or on the way home after discharge,” said Jonathon Feit, co-founder and CEO of Beyond Lucid Technologies, in a statement. “Where information transfer processes between ambulances and hospitals take place by paper and voice, about half of critical patient data are lost at each node of handoff. The negative impacts include avoidable medical errors, treatment delays, extended emergency department wait times, rising costs, provider burnout, negative patient experiences, and lawsuits. Partnering with MedAllies, along with HIEs in several states, represents the next step in BLT's commitment to leverage federal standards and liberate data to move to and from ambulances fast enough to be clinically useful. Responders and their hospital partners will gain long-sought access to past medical history, medications, critical forms such as POLST, and crash mechanism—no matter what ePCR the agency uses in the field.”
“EMS providers are an essential but often-overlooked component of national healthcare data exchange,” said John Blair, M.D., CEO of MedAllies, in a statement. “Our partnership with Beyond Lucid Technologies will help drive greater interoperability between EMS providers and hospitals, resulting in higher-quality care after patient handoffs. The MedAllies and Beyond Lucid Technologies partnership is the first between a QHIN and a mobile medicine-facing technology partner and we are excited by this opportunity to facilitate real-time consumable data across the mobile medicine ecosystem.”
MedAllies said it serves more than 800 hospitals, 5,000 organizations, and 125,000 healthcare providers.
