Getting Started With HIE Connector

ClinicTracker can help you send information to your local Health Information Exchange (HIE)

About HIE Connector

The HIE integration is a ClinicTracker enhancement that includes HIE consent management and automatic transmission of transitioned appointments to your HIE (Health Information Exchange) of choice.

Adding HIE Connector to Your Account

To request HIE Connector for your clinic, please use the Support Tab. 

Next Steps: Once the ClinicTracker Team has enabled HIE Connector, an Administrator from your clinic can request information from other organizations and can set the defaults for how your clinic responds to incoming requests.

Setting Up Health Information Exchange (HIE) Connector

  • Enable the HIE Connector Setting
  • Go to Admin Config > Options > Admin > HIE Integration Settings > Enable HIE Connector
  • Check Enable HIE Connector
  • Click OK

Message Defaults

When appointments are automatically sent to the HIE, a message will be constructed using the following settings.

 

Go to Admin Config > Options > Admin > HIE Integration Settings > Enable HIE Connector

 

  • Default To Address - Default address to be used on outgoing HIE messages. This will be the address of the HIE you are integrating with.
  • Default From Address - Default from address to use on outgoing HIE message. This address will be an address associated with your organization.
  • Default Subject Text - Default subject text to use on outgoing HIE messages. This allows you to set a custom subject for all outgoing HIE messages.
  • Default Body Text - Default body text to use on outgoing HIE messages. This allows you to set a custom body text for all outgoing HIE messages.

Next Batch Start Time

This setting is used to determine how far back, historically, the background process will look when querying for transitioned appointments. This setting only needs to be set once upon initial setup. Alternatively, it may be used for troubleshooting purposes.

Opt-In By Default (Optional)

Opt-In By Default can be enabled to automatically create an HIE consent record for a patient when their demographic record is entered into ClinicTracker. This can be useful if consent is required or collected upfront as a part of the intake process.

Consent Expiration (Optional)

By default, the expiration date of newly created consents will be set to expire a year from the current date. This can be changed by adjusting the Consents Expire In X Days setting in the ClinicTracker Options form.

Custom Description (Optional)

The text that is displayed on the HIE consent management form in Patient Portal can be customized by changing the HIE Explanation for the Patient Portal setting.

Custom Description Setting

Custom Description Displayed In Patient Portal.

Consent Management

Patient Demographics > Actions > HIE Consent Management

The following instructions outline the process of managing HIE consent records and assume HIE integration is enabled in your system. The majority of this section will reference the consent management form that can be located in Patient Demographics when selecting a patient.

Important: Although the HIE consent management form allows viewing of a patient’s entire consent history, the system only looks at the latest consent record when determining the validity of a patient’s consent. For example, older consent does not need to be revoked should a patient decide to revoke their consent.

Collecting Consent to Share Patient Information with Your HIE

In order to share information with the HIE, consent needs to be given by the patient. This is done in the system by creating and saving a new consent record. Initially, the consent management form will open with a pending consent record that can be saved.

If no save option is available, an existing consent is likely to be selected. In this case, you will click the New button first.

Important: A new consent record is always created when a patient is giving their consent. This will effectively override any previous consent record. Besides revoking, there is no way to modify an existing consent record.

New Consent

If consent is already selected, click the New button to initialize the new consent record.

Consent Dates

By default, the system will set the Given On date to today’s date and Expires On to a year from the current date. These values can be changed by interacting with the date time picker control by clicking the drop-down arrow or by entering a date using the keyboard.

  • Given On - the date, consent was given on
  • Expires On - The date the consent expires

Save Consent

Click the Save button to save the consent record

Note: Consent records can be created automatically when a patient’s demographic record is added to this system if Opt In By Default is enabled

Revoking Consent

The consent management system has been designed to allow a patient to revoke their consent at any time. To do so, select the active consent by double-clicking the latest consent record and clicking Revoke. You will be prompted to confirm this action.

 

Consent Statuses

There are multiple statuses to help the user determine the current state of a consent record.

  • Active - This is the patient’s latest consent and it is active, meaning the patient’s information can be shared with the HIE at this point in time. The active consent is displayed in green in the Consent History grid in both ClinicTracker and Patient Portal.
  • Inactive - The consent record was either future dated or overridden by a newer consent record.
  • Expired - The consent record has expired.
  • Revoked - Consent has been revoked.
  • Consent Management (Patient Portal) The consent management form in Patient Portal works much the same as it does in ClinicTracker. Follow the instructions below to access the HIE management screen from the Patient Portal.

1. Click the profile settings icon in the upper right-hand corner of the page.

2. Click to Share My Medical Information

HIE Consent Management Screen In Patient Portal

The Audit Log

An audit log is kept to track appointments that are being sent to the HIE or any errors that may occur when making the attempt. As an administrator, you can access the audit log by following these instructions.

1. Click Utilities, and then View Audit Logs

2. Select the HIE Integration: Sent Appointments log type and set the appropriate filters

3. Click Display Results

Additional Information on HIE Connector:  When HIE integration is enabled in your system, a background process will automatically send appointments to the HIE that has been successfully transitioned to Billing Tracker. The background process will collect any appointments transitioned after the Next Batch Start Time, filtering out any without patient consent. You can view the audit logs mentioned above to see what appointments are being sent and view any errors that may have occurred in the process.

 

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