(October 2, 2018) North Haven, CT- Connecticut State Medical Society (CSMS) and CTHealthLink are pleased to announce a collaboration with the Connecticut Office of Health Strategy (OHS) to improve patient care through the interoperability and connectivity of health information in Connecticut.

Connecticut Health Information Technology Officer Allan Hackney said, “CTHealthLink will provide a major connection to potentially thousands of physicians across the state; it’s an important part of our work to launch the state of Connecticut’s first statewide HIE linking doctors, hospitals, nursing facilities, home healthcare professionals, and others to give them a platform to exchange clinical and diagnostic data in real time. It will improve healthcare for consumers and make information gathering more efficient for providers. I want to thank the Connecticut State Medical Society for their partnership.”

Jeffrey Gordon, MD, Chair of the CTHealthLink Governance Committee, stated, “CTHealthLink was designed by physicians as a way of sharing important patient information with healthcare professionals, patients, health systems, payors, and state agencies.  By facilitating the exchange of patient data across these diverse settings, CTHealthLink complements OHS's HIE initiative and will assist the state in achieving its strategic goals.  Given the success other private sector state initiatives have had using the same technology platform deployed by CTHealthLink, we believe our patients and healthcare providers will find the collaboration mutually beneficial.”

In Connecticut’s application to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, OHS describes the state’s health information exchange infrastructure as consisting of “a network of networks.”

CTHealthLink’s technology provides the pathway for its members’ patient information to get from a medical practice or hospital electronic medical record to the state’s analytics platform.

Data from CTHealthLink and other providers across the healthcare spectrum will support statewide quality improvement initiatives, including the transmission of electronic clinical quality measures (eCQMs) to monitor healthcare quality, and the mapping of healthcare resources to promote adequate access to care.

Operational in Connecticut since 2017, CTHealthLink is part of a national HIE network operating in six other states to collectively allow participating physicians, healthcare professionals and patients to receive data from across the country. CTHealthLink is currently working with the Connecticut Department of Public Health and the Connecticut Department of Social Services.