Software

TribalNet 2024: Indian Health Service Announces PATH EHR Pilots

Rollouts are scheduled to begin at three Oklahoma sites in 2025.

Dominick Sorrentino is web editor for StateTech.

The Indian Health Service announced plans to start rolling out pilots of its new electronic health record at three Oklahoma sites in 2025: Lawton Indian Hospital, Anadarko Indian Health Center and Carnegie Indian Health Center.

PATH EHR is a cloud-based EHR from Oracle Health that will replace IHS’ 40-year-old Resource and Patient Management System.

“Our mission for this modernization is not just to provide the best possible EHR,” IHS CIO Mitchell Thornbrugh said. “We also want it to be managed by the user.”

Ensuring that EHR workflows are usable for clinicians in the field is key to optimizing health services for more than 2.7 million American Indians and Alaska Natives.

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Central, Secure Data Access Is a Game Changer for Tribes

Unlike RPMS, PATH, which stands for Patient at the Heart, is a centrally managed EHR that has potential to offer transformational benefits to tribal healthcare providers.

Data Accessibility Across Facilities Nationwide

A central repository for clinical data affords leaders more opportunities to mold policy decisions around population health trends.

“Elected officials are trying to solve the most pressing issues in their communities, and a lot of them center around healthcare,” Thornbrugh said. “We have to be able to support them all with data.”

For clinicians, PATH EHR simplifies nationwide data retrieval. Right now, providers must ask patients where they’ve received care so they can refer to that location’s EHR.

“In the future, we’ll simply ask for the patient’s information and the system will figure out where it was, because it won’t matter,” Thornbrugh said.

$4.5B-$6.2B

The estimated 10-year cost of the PATH electronic health record transition

Source: hcinnovationgroup.com, "Indian Health Service IT Exec Describes Plans for EHR Transition," Dec. 8, 2023

This enhanced data access also supports telehealth for Native people living in remote locations.

“It enables healthcare operations across vast distances,” said Chris Shupe, project manager for Delaware Nation Industries. “Tribes can stay closer to home, or even at home, to receive the care they need.”

Centrally Located, Centrally Supported

“Being centrally supported, we’re going to be able to provide a lot more support and training,” Thornbrugh said. “Since the system is the same, we can support training at a national level.”

With a national support team at the ready for PATH EHR, health care providers serving tribal nations will have more central resources available.

Stronger Cybersecurity

A centrally managed EHR also vastly improves the ability to safely and indefinitely store patient data.

It’s far easier to patch, allowing for updates to be pushed out within weeks as opposed to months (if at all), said Thornbrugh, and it supports multifactor authentication and advanced encryption.

The Path Ahead for IHS and Tribal Nations

IHS is hoping to secure $435 million for the 2025 fiscal year, but expects to fall short of that. Budget has been the top challenge so far.

To prepare care providers for the transition, the agency plans to employ thoughtful organizational change management, local infrastructure assessments and mitigations for each site to understand its needs, user training within a few weeks of going live, and multiyear rollouts in cohorts across IHS.

Healthcare organizations can also prepare by addressing existing operational issues, such as ensuring that coding and billing backlogs are addressed.

The IHS has also created a guide highlighting these and other steps that healthcare providers can take in advance of the transition.

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