The CalRHIO Board of Directors has appointed Molly Joel Coye, MD, MPH, president and chief executive officer, effective immediately. CalRHIO is the California statewide information exchange founded in 2005. Dr. Coye was a principal founder of CalRHIO and has served as the chair of the Board of Directors since 2007.

“Molly has worked tirelessly to move CalRHIO from an idea to an operating entity,” said Duane Dauner, California Hospital Association president and CalRHIO vice chair. “Without her vision and remarkable gift for connecting people and getting them to collaborate CalRHIO would not have been possible. We are fortunate to secure a person of Dr. Coye’s experience and talent as CalRHIO’s CEO.”

Coye was founder and CEO of the Health Technology Center (HealthTech), a San Francisco-based non-profit research organization that has joined with the Public Health Institute (PHI) in Oakland.
 
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“CalRHIO’s goal is to improve patient safety and reduce costly avoidable or duplicate services by making it possible for physicians to electronically access patients’ medical information when and where they need it for care decisions – in the hospital, clinic, physician office, nursing home, or other location,” said Molly Coye, MD, MPH, CalRHIO Board Chair. “Studies to date on savings from electronic health information exchange are encouraging, but limited. We are delighted to partner with RAND and USC to expand the base of knowledge, not only for CalRHIO, but for national, state, and local policymakers. The experience and reputations of the RAND-USC researchers lend an enormous amount of credibility to this pioneering effort.”

CalRHIO has selected the RAND Corporation and the University of Southern California to measure savings resulting from physicians having secure electronic access to critical patient information through CalRHIO’s statewide Health Information Exchange (HIE). The first phase of the initiative will measure savings in emergency departments.
 
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“United Healthcare has reviewed many HIE efforts around the country and we believe CalRHIO has the right technology and business model to be successful in the long term,” Sam Ho, MD, UnitedHealthcare’s executive vice president and chief medical officer, said in announcing an agreement to participate in CalRHIO and pay for HIE services provided to its members.

“UnitedHealthcare’s leadership in supporting CalRHIO’s business model is a major step toward ensuring that we can finance and sustain HIE for communities across California,” said CalRHIO Board Chair Molly Coye.

“We sincerely appreciate how United Healthcare has stepped forward to lead and serve as an example through its commitment to HIE -- a cornerstone of the Obama Administration's health reform efforts,” said C. Duane Dauner, California Hospital Association president and CalRHIO Board vice-chair.
 
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“The next several months will combine a period of unparalleled opportunity to advance HIE and HIT in California, with tremendous burdens on the state to develop policies, processes, and decisions in an arena that is still quite new,” Dr. Molly Coye, CalRHIO Board Chair, told the California Senate Committee on Health, headed by Sen. Elaine Alquist, March 13th. “The pressure of time will be real because of the opportunities to shape emerging federal policies as well as to compete for large amounts of new federal funds.” Dr. Coye, at the committee’s request, offered recommendations for how the state should proceed.
 

A statewide system to provide physicians with secure electronic access to critical patient information is set to launch in 23 Orange County emergency departments. The health information exchange initiative (HIE) is a collaboration between the statewide California Regional Health Information Organization (CalRHIO) and the Orange County Partnership Regional Health Information Organization (OCPRHIO). Initially it will provide emergency department physicians with medical record information on 360,000 patients enrolled in CalOptima, which provides coverage for people in Medi-Cal, Medicare, and Healthy Kids. The system is slated to go live by July 2009. Health information exchange (HIE) is a major piece of the Obama Administration’s stimulus package.
 
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