The Agency for Health Care Administration (Agency) announced today that the Florida Health Information Exchange’s (Florida HIE) Event Notification Service (ENS) has expanded to cover more than two million Florida residents. The ENS provides timely and secure notifications of patient hospital encounters to health care providers and health plans, who use these notifications to improve the delivery of patient care.
Agency Secretary Justin M. Senior said, “The ENS bridges a critical gap by notifying providers and health plans about their patients’ hospital visits. Reaching two million Floridians is an incredible milestone for this service, and the use of ENS and other health information technology platforms will be a key element in improving quality and reducing the cost of health care across the state.”
Together eight Florida health plans – Aetna, Florida Blue, Humana, Magellan Complete Care, Molina Healthcare, Prestige Health Choice, Sunshine Health, UnitedHealthcare and Wellcare of Florida – receive alerts on nearly half of all Florida Medicaid enrollees. This patient-authorized exchange provides information essential to improving care coordination, promoting primary care utilization and reducing health care costs.
Over 20 Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) are also participating in ENS and together cover an additional 300,000 Florida residents. Each ACO is a group of doctors, hospitals, and other health care providers who voluntarily come together to provide high quality care to their Medicare patients. By keeping providers informed of patient hospital encounters, the ENS is making it easier to provide high quality care to Florida’s Medicare population.
The ENS was piloted in late 2013 and the dedicated service has delivered over 1.8 million notifications since its inception. For more information on this and other Florida HIE programs, please visit www.florida-hie.net.
The Agency for Health Care Administration is committed to better health care for all Floridians. The Agency administers Florida’s Medicaid program, licenses and regulates more than 49,000 health care facilities and 43 health plans, and publishes health care data and statistics at www.FloridaHealthFinder.gov. Additional information about Agency initiatives is available via Facebook (AHCAFlorida), Twitter (@AHCA_FL) and YouTube (/AHCAFlorida).