The Integration Framework, developed by Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), provides guidance to health care systems, states, and health information technology (IT) vendors to support successful project execution, management and communications for Health IT integrations. This Framework is based on the project’s learnings from Prescription Drug Monitoring Program-Electronic Health Record (PDMP-EHR) Integration and electronic Clinical Decision Support (CDS) Implementation. The intended audience for this Framework includes health care systems preparing to integrate their EHR with the state PDMP, as well as PDMP administrators interested in providing PDMP-EHR integrations to health care systems in their state. The learnings from this project may also be useful to organizations undertaking other Health IT integrations. This Framework is supplemented by the PDMP-EHR Integration Toolkit that provides detailed guidance and templates for specific phases of integration.

 In situations of medical complexity, who has access to information about an older adult's health information – including mental health and substance use history and treatment – can be a complicated issue. In this virtual training, a complex older adult health situation was presented. The legal issues related to the privacy of protected health information were reviewed by Jacqueline Seitz, JD, and Christine Khaikin, JD from the SAMHSA-funded Center of Excellence for Protected Health Information (CoE-PHI). Dr. Rebecca Allen discussed ethical issues inherent in the case, highlighting common issues in meeting the needs of older adults while assuring that the right people have the right information. A broader discussion of these issues were lead by  the E4 Center of Excellence for Behavioral Health Disparities in aging.

Objectives:

Describe when and how the federal privacy laws apply to the Protected Health Information (PHI) of Older Adults
Identify ethical considerations related to PHI, autonomy, and paternalism
Recognize how to access resources and technical assistance through the E4 Center and the CoE-PHI

Use this curricula to learn more about the basics of health information exchange. The enclosed resources are designed to be easily understood and to support health information exchange in your practice and community.

In the 2019-2020 contract year, as part of the Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative HITEQ conducted an environmental scan to determine the role of EHRs and health IT in health center capacity and ability to expand HIV screening and prevention. The full report is available for download. 

Health centers are having to dramatically change approaches to patient care as the COVID-19 public health emergency keeps patients at home and ramps up the demands of telehealth and other remote care modalities. This resource is a quick start guide for health centers making this change. 

HITEQ created this template to assist HCCNs, PCAs, or other organizations in conducting health IT assessments of multiple health centers. 

This webinar series will highlight the intersection between health information technology and behavioral health services and considerations. In the first webinar, a joint collaboration between the HITEQ Center and the National Council for Behavioral Health, we introduced the series and the planned topic areas to be covered as well as explore other suggested topics from the participants. 

The Health Information Technology, Evaluation, and Quality Center (HITEQ) hosted this webinar on promising and innovative practices for the use of health information technologies (IT) to enhance opioid use disorder (OUD) treatment. The discussion focused on how various health information technology practices and tools, including electronic health records and prescription drug monitoring programs, can be used to enhance OUD services and specifically medication assisted treatment (MAT). The webinar also featured the experiences and practices of health centers which are currently using health IT to enhance OUD services..

The HITEQ Center interviewed ten health centers and health center partners to identify solutions and promising practices for addressing childhood obesity across the health center program. The focus included how health centers are meeting the Uniform Data System (UDS) measure and how they are taking further steps to identify and intervene with those at risk of obesity leveraging health information technology, electronic health records, and the data they have. Seven key areas are identified in the resulting issue brief.