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Improving correctional health care: Health information exchange, health homes and the affordable care act
CHS, with its partner bureau Information Technology Initiatives, is connecting the comprehensive jail electronic health record to several community sources of medical information. The most significant connection is the statewide health information exchange known as the State Health Information Network of New York (SHINY). This connection allows for accessing of patient medical summaries from health systems statewide. Other technological connections include accessing Medicaid claims data for patients in the mental health service and community medication lookup on all admissions. These initiatives will increase the level and continuity of care provided to CHS patients, however a central challenge is effectively managing this influx of data. In response, CHS has redesigned the medical intake process to include dedicated steps for information management.
The second area of innovation involves CHS partnerships with local health homes. Health homes represent the effort of NY to match high needs patients with health systems that can provide comprehensive case management. Thus far, there are 26 health homes in NY who have each received at least one list of high needs patients for whom they will receive financial incentives for effective case management and improved clinical outcomes. The first jail-based health homes partnership involves CHS transitional care team finding patients in the jail system who are on a health home's list of patients, making contact with them in jail and either facilitating enrollment for those not yet actually enrolled or providing case management and information transfer for those who are already enrolled. These two areas of innovation stand to significantly increase continuity of care for individual patients and meet core objectives of the ACA. Among the top priorities of the ACA are to improve health care quality, facilitate linkages to primary care using community services, reduce costs while promoting high-value care.
Provision of health care to the public
Learning Objectives:
Describe innovations in health information exchange that can benefit incarcerated patients.
Discuss features of health homes and the Affordable Care Act that may be important for correctional settings to prepare for.
Keywords: Jails and Prisons, Health Care Reform
Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I wrote the initial draft of this abstract and coordinated the editing process
Any relevant financial relationships? No
I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.