May 28, 2019
Altarum’s Christy Avery recently spoke with Second Wave Michigan about our work to improve the care of incarcerated inmates by integrating electronic health records and a health information exchange (HIE) into the correctional system.
In Washtenaw County, Michigan, the Correctional Care Integration Project (CCIP), a partnership between Altarum, Washtenaw County Community Mental Health, Michigan HIE Great Lakes Connect, Correct Care Solutions, Biz Stream, and Peter Chang Enterprises, successfully established an HIE for the Washtenaw County Jail and the Washtenaw County Youth Center (the county's juvenile detention facility). The CCIP implemented new technology and workflows allowing for inmates' EHRs to be created, stored, and exchanged between the correctional facilities and other healthcare providers, improving the coordination and delivery of medical and behavioral health care to inmates.
Christy Avery, who served as Altarum's project manager for the CCIP, says that it’s a massive improvement from the way things worked before. Avery says the HIE "opened up this whole new world" when it launched in 2017, yielding numerous success stories for patients. "The big takeaway is they (correctional facilities) need access to this information for better coordination of care," she says. "There is a potential solution and I hope we can continue to look towards moving in that direction."
Read the full article “How Technology is Bridging Gaps Between Healthcare and Underserved Populations.”