Healthy Connect Alaska tells Senate panel HIE reduces tests, speeds care and can support social needs outreach

Kendra Sticker, executive director of Healthy Connect Alaska, told the Senate Health and Social Services Committee that the state's health information exchange gives clinicians fast access to patient records, reducing duplicate tests and speeding treatment.

"We are simply a data repository for protected health information that is protected by HIPAA standards," Sticker said during the committee's Feb. 6 hearing in Butrovich Room 205 in Juneau.

Sticker said the nonprofit HIE, created by legislation in February 2009 and governed by a board whose composition is set in statute, accepts direct feeds from electronic medical records and makes medication lists, lab results, encounter histories and care summaries available to participating providers. In an illustrated video shown to the committee, Healthy Connect described scenarios in which immediate access to records allowed clinicians to treat stroke, coordinate…