New MEDHOST Service Deciphers Required Public Health Information Reporting for Hospitals Mandated by Meaningful Use Stage 2

To help hospitals successfully submit syndromic surveillance, lab results and immunization registries to their state’s designated public health agency as required by Meaningful Use Stage 2, MEDHOST today announced the launch of its “YourCareLink” service. By utilizing YourCareLink, hospitals can free internal staff to focus on other core measures required for Meaningful Use Stage 2 attestation and leave the labor-intensive management and monitoring of the public health information reporting to MEDHOST.

“Hospitals can’t afford to further stress their IT staffs, especially when there’s little to no return on investment for hospitals handling the public health information reporting mandate themselves,” said Craig Herrod, President of MEDHOST. “Our turnkey YourCareLink service ensures that public health data is received by the appropriate state agency, and if the state requires any changes, MEDHOST fully manages that for the hospital. This Meaningful Use mandate becomes particularly complex for providers that operate in more than one state because each state has different submission requirements. MEDHOST has a detailed understanding of state requirements, and by operating at a larger scale, our expertise delivers great value to hospitals.”

Unlike the public health reporting process itself, engaging YourCareLink is a simple and uncomplicated process for hospitals. MEDHOST works directly with hospital staff to ensure that data feeds from their facility’s ONC-ACB certified EHR, whether a complete or modular certified system, are successfully transporting the hospital’s syndromic surveillance, lab reports and immunization registries data to the appropriate state public health agency. YourCareLink uses the HL7 standard for public health transactions between the hospital’s EHR and the YourCareLink engine, and then submits the transactions to the state-appointed public health agency in the state-specific format.

MEDHOST actively monitors and maintains the facility-to-state data feed and reports any problems to the hospital before fixing them. If any of the hospital’s public health information is rejected by the state agency, YourCareLink staff notifies the affected hospital and works with the state to identify and resolve any errors that could cause an interruption of the data feed between the hospital and the state agency, thereby minimizing strain on hospital staff.

YourCareLink provides hospitals with a live Web-based reporting capability, giving them real-time visibility into how their YourCareLink service is performing. In addition, MEDHOST has regular interaction with hospitals to ensure they’re receiving direct status reports in addition to the Web-based reporting tool.

“Hospitals have been asking for a service like YourCareLink ever since learning that public health reporting was part of the Meaningful Use Stage 2 final rule because they realize it’s an extremely complex requirement,” added Herrod. “We are pleased to offer the YourCareLink service as an affordable, outsourced solution to a labor-intensive Stage 2 requirement and help hospitals with their Stage 2 attestation efforts. We believe that facilities of all sizes, from standalone critical access hospitals to multi-facility health systems, will quickly realize significant value by implementing YourCareLink.”