HIT Integration

Successful health information technology (health IT) integration depends upon executive support, active stakeholder engagement, and willing user acceptance and adoption. When that happens, the overall investments are in line with practical, consensus-driven expectations and directed toward quantifiable return. IWA staff has consistently proven itself to be a collaborative partner in assisting clients to hone in on their business priorities and objectives and effectively align them with IT reality. Our consultative support spans the business solution delivery life cycle, ranging from disciplined requirements definition to a determination of solution alternatives and the rationalization of development and implementation activities. We consistently utilize Project Management Institute (PMI) standards, as well as other best practices frameworks, such as the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and Control Objectives for Information and related Technology (COBIT) among others, to ensure that relationships between need, development, maintenance, and support harmoniously result in the anticipated solution and deliver measurable outcomes.

• IWA staff has worked with the Chesterfield County, Virginia Department of Risk Management to confirm which Government agencies were Covered Entities (CEs) as defined by HIPAA, to provide Privacy and Security Rule training, and to deliver recommendations on solution alternatives pertaining to data interoperability and encryption, and to secure information access which also had some applicability to components of Emergency Support Function #8 (ESF-8) as defined by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI).

• Additionally, IWA provided technical assistance to a partnership between the State of Michigan and Michigan State University (MSU) on a federally- supported pilot program to implement a secure and interoperable information system integrating health care licensing and public safety data.  The purpose of the Michigan Program for Background Checks (MPBC) was to facilitate an electronic background check process for employment applicants within a long term care facility setting and serve as a mechanism for "early warning" and detection of unfit persons before they can gain access to the "at risk" population groups of the disabled and elderly.   

• Between 2002 and 2004, staff from IWA worked with the DC DOH Bureau of Epidemiology and Health Risk Assessment (BEHRA) to define the functional baseline architecture for the Washington Automated Disease Surveillance System (WADSS) prototype which effectively fused mission-essential/mission-critical public health surveillance data and metadata captured in real or near real-time from a variety of sources in disparate formats to support threat recognition (including bioterrorism) and response via electronic analysis, trending, dissemination, and reporting.