Zen Healthcare IT helps hospitals and health systems unlock critical data needed to improve care for patients with substance abuse and behavioral health related crisis.

Are Today’s Possibilities Your Current Reality?  

Every day healthcare providers are faced with a critical decision. Is an Opioid prescription the right choice for pain management for a patient or is there the possibility of opioid addiction? Increasingly, states are turning to Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMP) to give healthcare providers the full picture of the patient’s prescribed opioid medication history.

The value seems obvious. However, most PDMP programs require logging in to a separate portal to access the state PDMP database. Albeit helpful, these PDMP portals are limited to only giving access to prescription drug information. Now your providers have yet another system to deal with when delivering care to patients. And too often that leads to poor compliance.

Zen’s clients are addressing this issue in two ways:

• Integration of the statewide PDMP Data into the state or regional HIE Provider Portals. Health Current, the State of Arizona HIE took this approach. Providers accessing the HIE Portal in Arizona can now also access PDMP data along with the full longitudinal clinical patient record maintained by the HIE.  Other states are in the process of implementing this model where a HIE Provider Portal is well established.

• Integration of the PDMP Data directly into the health system EHR. In this approach a button or link in the EHR connects to the PDMP database. The largest PDMP vendor in the U.S. (Appriss) supports API level integration and Zen has already built the connectors using the world’s most popular open source integration engine, since many EHR’s can’t easily interact with 3rd party API’s.

To address the Opioid crisis, we need to empower providers to be able to make quick and effective clinical decisions. Integration at the point of care drives compliance.

New HHS Regulations Bring Greater Data Fluidity

To make it easier for your clinicians and medical staff treating Opioid and other behavioral health related conditions, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has issued an important rule change effective in early February, 2018.  As of February 3rd, healthcare providers can share sensitive information about substance abuse history and treatment with other entities involved in the clinical and revenue cycle for patient care. Under this new rule, patient consent can be obtained through one consent form. This streamlines the historical process of requiring separate patient release and disclosure forms for each entity.  

This new rule will help remove barriers to information within health information exchanges operated by hospitals, health systems, and private and public HIEs.

Improve Your Access to Behavioral Health Data Access  

The Zen Healthcare IT team makes data interoperability between systems healthcare systems possible. We help organizations like yours establish connectivity to HIEs in your area. And, our technology platform options will give you the infrastructure, development resources, and interface tools you’ll need to connect your acute, ambulatory, and therapy care settings.

Hospitals, Health Systems, and HIEs rely on Zen Healthcare IT to make this interoperability possible through the following services:

• Strategic Interoperability Consulting
• Gemini Integration Platform
• Specialized Interface Development for Providers