History & Background

• HIXNY is a regional health information organization (RHIO) comprised of a diverse group of health care organizations including hospitals, physician practices, health plans and health care associations.
• HIXNY was founded in 1999 by the Iroquois Healthcare Alliance and the New York State Health Plan Association.
• Through HIXNY, the member organizations partner for the health of the community and work together to share medical information more efficiently at the point of care for the benefit of patients. 
• HIXNY has been working collaboratively with its members to build the appropriate infrastructure for a health care exchange that protects patient privacy and securely aggregates and accurately delivers medication histories, allergies, lab results, reports active care progress notes, and treatment history in a standardized, protected paperless format across all providers.
• HIXNY’s members include health plans in the region representing over 400,000 members; major regional hospitals with over 2,000 beds; large physician groups representing a total of 500 physicians, and associations representing 56 hospitals and over 30 health plans in New York state.
• Once a patient agrees to participate in the health care exchange, providers would have access to the patient’s information.  This becomes especially important in emergency situations where the patient may not be able to provide necessary health information to the treating physicians.
• HIXNY will conduct a phased roll-out of its health information exchange in the fourth quarter of 2008 beginning with the availability of medication history, allergies, and visit information, along with e-prescribing for physicians.
• The many benefits of a health information exchange include available information in an emergency, fewer repeated tests, reduced risk of mistakes, and less chance of drug interactions because e-prescribing automatically warns of potential problems or incorrect doses.