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60
Healthcare Journal of NEW ORLEANS
JUL / AUG 2012
vancement in improving quality care and
reducing medication errors.
“We are looking forward to having a
richer exchange by including more hospi-
tals and care providers. Ultimately giving
patients access to their health information
within the exchange is vital to its sustain-
ability,” he says.
Bunkie General Hospital, located in
central Louisiana, has 25 medical beds,
eight psych beds, and owns two rural
health clinics. It serves patients in Avoy-
elles, St. Landry, and Evangeline Parishes.
One of the first hospitals in Louisiana to
use telemedicine, the hospital has received
the American Heart Association’s Get with
the Guidelines Heart Failure Silver and
Gold Performance Achievement Awards.
In the July 2011 Healthgrades ratings,
Bunkie was among the 48 Louisiana hospi-
tals ranked top in the nation. Bunkie also
ranked in the top 10 hospitals in Louisiana
for pulmonary services based on three
years of data related to pneumonia and
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
(COPD) diagnoses.
In March 2012 Bunkie added another
first, when it became the first Critical Ac-
cess Hospital in the state to enroll as a
tive to the LaHIE partnership. The hospital
is centrally located in the state, with many
patient referrals going beyond the local area.
Deville says LaHIE connectivity gives their
patients choices. “For example, if one of our
primary care physicians refers a patient to
a cardiologist in Opelousas, when that pa-
tient returns to our hospital for X-ray and
lab work, the physician automatically gets
those results. There is no wait time. That
will improve patient care as we progress
with this integration,” notes Deville.
The LaHIE team is now meeting with
hospitals, health systems, and other health
providers throughout out state but contin-
ues to work with the Acadiana region to
build valued usage of LaHIE. Core services
include a master patient index, provider
registry, record locator service, user identi-
ty management and authentication, audit
trail, and consent management.
LaHIE is currently adding features such
as single sign on; direct secure messaging;
additional data flowing through HIE (med-
ications, procedures); and facilitation of ad-
ditional functionality with DHH services
(e.g., public health reporting on immuni-
zations, Medicaid eligibility verification,
electronic lab reporting, and syndromic
surveillance). Features to be developed in
later phases include case management/
analytics, patient access to LaHIE, quality
reporting capabilities, and interstate ex-
change capabilities.
To learn more about LaHIE , contact a
representative at 225-334-9299 or (toll-
free) 877-676-9298, or by email at lahie@
lhcqf.org.
Cindy Munn is the Executive Director of the Louisiana
Health Care Quality Forum
Quality
Correspondent
participant in LaHIE. Linda Deville, Chief
Executive Officer, counts access to both pa-
tient information and specialists as major
benefits in partnering with LaHIE.
“It was important to enroll in LaHIE
because our hospital was already partici-
pating in a health information network,
and we saw the added value of increased
access to specialty care,” shares Deville.
“During Hurricane Katrina much of the
southern part of the state migrated north.
When patients arrived at Bunkie General
some could not speak, and we had no pa-
tient information for many of them. One
patient, transported by helicopter, was in
a coma. When the staff opened the purse
that was with her, they found information
citing the patient had tuberculosis. We put
the patient in isolation and did all of the
precautionary work. However, when the
patient was able to communicate she said
the purse was not hers.”
Based on the information available
at that time, Deville said the precau-
tions were necessary, adding, “Improved
patient identification and our ability to
access patient information is critical in a
disaster or emergency.”
Bunkie’s medical staff has been recep-
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It was important to enroll in
LaHIE because our hospital
was already participating
in a health information
network, and we saw the
added value of increased
access to specialty care.