Health Information Networks - Integration

Integrating Health Information Exchange with Care Compliance Dashboard

Objective:

In this lab, students will gain hands-on experience with Health Gorilla's Health Information Exchange (HIE) sandbox and an EHR Sandbox to simulate real-world healthcare interoperability scenarios. Students will retrieve patient details from the HIE sandbox, analyze the data, and populate it into a Care Compliance Dashboard within the EHR sandbox. This lab provides insights into how HIEs facilitate data exchange across healthcare systems and emphasizes the practical application of interoperability standards like FHIR.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this lab, students will be able to:

1. Understand Health Information Exchange (HIE):

   • Explain the purpose and functionality of an HIE, particularly Health Gorilla.

   • Describe the role of FHIR standards in facilitating data exchange.

2. Retrieve and Process Healthcare Data:

   • Execute API queries to access patient records from an HIE.

   • Transform and validate data for use in other healthcare systems.

3. Integrate Data into EHR Systems:

   • Map patient data to a Care Compliance Dashboard.

   • Identify and troubleshoot common data integration challenges.

4. Enhance Technical Skills:

   • Work with FHIR-compliant data structures in a real-world healthcare context.

5. Recognize the Importance of Interoperability:

   • Appreciate the critical role of data exchange in improving patient outcomes.

   • Discuss real-world applications and limitations of interoperability solutions.

Lab Overview

1. Introduction to Health Gorilla HIE:

   • Understand the role of Health Information Exchanges in modern healthcare.

   • Familiarize yourself with the Health Gorilla sandbox environment and API documentation.

2. Patient Data Retrieval:

   • Utilize FHIR endpoints to query patient records and retrieve demographic and clinical data.

   • Explore how HIEs aggregate and normalize data from multiple sources.

3. Care Compliance Dashboard:

   • Learn to map and populate patient data into Care Compliance Dashboard.

4. Data Validation and Analysis:

   • Ensure the accuracy and completeness of the transferred data.

   • Identify and resolve common interoperability issues, such as data format mismatches or missing values.

Lab Workflow

1. Setup:

   • Defined in Lab Instructions

2. Data Retrieval:

   • Execute API calls to the HIE sandbox to retrieve specific patient records.

   • Download the data in FHIR-compliant JSON format.

3. Data Transformation:

   • Map the retrieved FHIR data fields to the EHR dashboard fields.

   • Use tools or custom scripts to transform data for compatibility.

4. Dashboard Population:

   • Populate the Care Compliance Dashboard with the transformed data.

   • Ensure the dashboard reflects patient compliance metrics, such as medication adherence or preventive care measures.

5. Report and Feedback:

   • Generate a summary report detailing the workflow, challenges, and solutions.

   • Reflect on the practical implications of data interoperability in healthcare.