Care Coordination: Health Information Exchange

Health Information Exchange

As patients move between hospitals and safety net clinics, the exchange of health information is key to ensure that providers have a full picture of their clinical history and care relationships. A comprehensive view of a patient’s health information supports clinical decision-making and coordination of care, reduces duplicative services and associated costs, and improves patient outcomes. 

The MHCP supports several strategies to improve the exchange of health information, including leveraging Wisconsin’s state health information exchange, WISHIN. WISHIN serves as a repository for clinical data from all health systems and health centers in Milwaukee.  WISHIN also partners with PatientPing, which provides real-time notifications when an established primary care patient any local emergency department or hospital for cross-organizational care coordination.  

As of summer 2022, all Milwaukee health systems and community health centers will use Epic for their electronic health records. This creates additional opportunities for clinical care management and care coordination across the delivery system. MHCP is also working to improve “interoperability” among and between health systems and health centers in collaboration with the Wisconsin Primary Health Care Association (WPHCA) and jointly funded HIT Advisor.