The Connxus (formerly ICC, the Integrated Care Collaboration) is the Health Information Exchange (HIE) for the Greater Austin/Central Texas area. HIEs organize and store electronic health information of patients across multiple providers and hospitals in one place, allowing doctors, pharmacists, EMTs and other providers to access a more complete record of patients’ medical information in a quick, secure, consistent, and cost-effective manner. HIEs take significant time, money, and collaborative planning to successfully launch and adopt in a community, and Connxus has gone through several stages of growth and evolution since it began in 1997.
Our research team began contracting with Connxus in 2019 to help innovate Connxus’s approach, improve their internal processes, and expand the utility and uses of the Connxus platform. Below is a list of some of the accomplishments achieved by our research team and Connxus as part of this research and development project:
- Partnered with a nationally-recognized vendor (Collective Medical) to implement emergency and inpatient alerts and notifications (i.e. ADT or “Admission, Discharge, Transfer” alerts)
- Developed and piloted a proactive notification system for Central Health’s most high-risk patients using Connxus’s portal, whose success led to Central Health deciding to implement the notifications for all individuals enrolled in MAP (Medical Access Program)
- Connected Connxus with academic researchers to generate revenue for Connxus and a greater knowledge base for how Connxus data can be used in academic projects, healthcare research and clinical delivery
- Moved Connxus ’s technology ecosystem from leased physical computers to a more advanced AWS (Amazon Web Services) cloud-based environment, resulting in reduced costs ($330k saved annually) and improved ability to scale Connxus’s resource capacity as needed
- Improved Connxus ’s general operations and business practices, including adoption of regular management meetings, use of project management tools, creation of data request and release protocols, and outsourcing activities where appropriate ($300k saved annually).