Irvine, CA and Cincinnati, OH, November 10, 2009 – Mirth Corporation, the leader in commercial open source healthcare information technology, and HealthBridge, one of the nation’s largest and most advanced community health information exchanges today announced the selection of the Mirth Meaningful Use Exchange (Mirth MUx) as the core of HealthBridge’s next generation interoperability infrastructure. By implementing Mirth MUx HealthBridge becomes one of the nation’s first health information exchanges to enable physician access to critical patient information via the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN). The NHIN has been developed under the guidance of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) to serve as a nationwide, interoperable health information infrastructure. Mirth MUx helps organizations fast-track NHIN connectivity.
Built on the foundation of Mirth’s widely used open source healthcare interface engine, Mirth MUx speeds NHIN connectivity by fully incorporating the open source CONNECT software developed by the Federal Health Architecture program under ONC. CONNECT incorporates all of the standards and requirements outlined for the NHIN, helping organizations more quickly get connected into NHIN-enabled health information exchanges.
“For the past year Mirth has been a key technology partner to HealthBridge in enabling us to make critical patient information available to physicians where and when they need it across our community,” said Robert Steffel, chief executive officer for HealthBridge. “Now, with the addition of the NHIN-enabled Mirth MUx, as a central component of our infrastructure, we can extend our reach to enable information exchange with participating organizations nationally,” added Steffel.
HealthBridge provides connectivity for 28 hospitals, more than 5200 physician users, 700 physician practices, and 17 local health departments, as well as nursing homes, independent labs, radiology centers and others across the Greater Cincinnati healthcare community. It delivers nearly 3 million clinical messages and results to more than 5,200 physicians monthly.
Mirth MUx can help healthcare delivery organizations of all sizes achieve proposed meaningful use criteria for clinical information exchange. Physicians meeting these criteria have the potential to earn up to $44,000 over five years, and hospitals stand to earn millions in federal incentive dollars over a similar period for implementation and use of electronic health record systems. The ability to exchange clinical information is among the central components of these meaningful use criteria.
“HealthBridge has been widely recognized for their leadership in advancing health information exchange across communities and, more importantly, they have demonstrated a model for success both operationally and financially,” observed Jon Teichrow, president of Mirth Corporation. “Mirth Corporation is honored to be working with such a high caliber organization and delighted to play a part in the important work they do to create a safer more coordinated system of care delivery – one that works better for physicians and patients,” added Teichrow.
Mirth MUx enables healthcare organizations to securely exchange clinical information such as patient clinical summaries, lab results, medication histories and other records directly or via the NHIN. Designed to support standards such as HL7 and the Continuity of Care Document (CCD), Mirth MUx enables organizations to go live in weeks, and at a far lower cost than traditional vendor solutions. The Mirth MUx document portal gives authorized healthcare providers secure access to critical patient information via any Internet-connected computer.
Mirth MUx deployments are available on the Mirth E1000 Enterprise Appliance and the Mirth V1000 Virtual Appliance platforms. These enterprise-grade appliance platforms help reduce the time, effort and risk associated with implementation, and offer faster performance for organizations with high transaction volumes. Mirth MUx is also available as a hosted solution.
Since its launch as the Mirth Project in 2006, Mirth Connect – a core component of Mirth MUx – has become the most widely downloaded open source software for healthcare data integration, with over 70,000 worldwide downloads and a user community numbering over 7,000 professionals. Mirth Connect supports all major healthcare data interchange standards, including HL7, X12, DICOM, NCPDP, and XML.
About Mirth Corporation
Mirth is a global leader in commercial open source products and services powering healthcare interoperability. It also delivers information technology consulting, hosts high availability secure applications. Mirth solutions are used daily by thousands of health professionals and institutions worldwide to streamline care management processes and to securely exchange health information. The Mirth Project represents the first in a series of Mirth initiatives aimed at transforming health information technology by making high-value information technology utilities available to the healthcare community on an open source basis. For more information visit www.mirthcorp.com.
Contact: Jon Teichrow
(949) 255-5090
jont [at] mirthcorp [dot] com
About HealthBridge
HealthBridge is one of the nation’s largest and most financially successful health information exchange organizations. HealthBridge is a not-for-profit corporation founded in 1997 to enhance the ability to share health information electronically in the Greater Cincinnati tri-state area. Each month more than 3 million clinical lab tests, radiology reports, orders, and other clinical information are transmitted through HealthBridge’s secure electronic network, more than nearly any other community health information exchange in the country. For more information about HealthBridge, see www.healthbridge.org.
Contact: Trudi Matthews.
(513) 247-5266
tmatthews [at] healthbridge [dot] org
