The State Health Information Technology Program Director was selected in April 2010. This position resides within the Governor's Office of Information Technology, reporting to State CIO, and is responsible for:

 

1.  State HIT Program oversight and coordination including; contract management, developing the State Health IT Enterprise and Interoperability Plan through a HIT Technical Architecture engagement in coordination with the Governor's Office, state agencies, and the Colorado Regional Health Information Organization (CORHIO), Colorado's designated entity for American Recovery and Reinvestment Act [ARRA] HITECH funds for state-level health IT initiatives); and

 

2.  Collaborating across the health reform implementation initiative and the five ARRA-HITECH programs awarded to Colorado for state-level health information exchange (HIE) adoption and Meaningful Use.

 

 

The State HIT Program Director also functions as the state's Health IT Coordinator, a position required by the Health Information Exchange (HIE) Cooperative Agreement grant (one of five ARRA-HITECH grants awarded to Colorado). The State HIT Coordinator has two primary roles:

 

1.  Develop and advocate for an effective HIT policy, governance, and accountability to achieve statewide goals.

 

2.  Coordinate state HIT efforts with Medicaid, Public Health, and other federally funded programs so that they are aligned with the state designated entity for a unified approach to building a state-level HIE. 

 

To fulfill these responsibilities, the State HIT Program Director and Coordinator has established a functional HIT Advisory Group of key leaders across the state's health and human services related programs, and is leading efforts to define HIT for the state, complete a three-phased approach to conduct a current state assessment, produce a shared future vision and create a state enterprise and interoperability plan that effectively leverages state IT assets and enables statewide HIE capacity.

 

State HIT Program: A three-phased approach

 

The Phase I – Current State Assessment was initially completed in September 2010 and included a comprehensive inventory of State assets, programs and projects. It also included identification of funding sources, roadmap of state and federal legislation and policy, and identification of issues, risks, and questions to be answered in order to agree on a shared vision for HIE implementation supporting health care reform and the pathway toward achieving it. As programs, projects, and systems were identified in the assessment, they were qualified against five criteria shown in the diagram below to establish the State HIT Portfolio. 

 

    

 

Phase I- Current State Assessment- last updated February 2011

 

Phase's II & III - Shared Future Vision and State Enterprise and Interoperability Plan development are being completed in parallel through a HIT Technical Architecture engagement with OIT, a Cisco partner team, and CORHIO. These next phases were officially kicked off in early 2011 when the Hickenlooper administration took office and new cabinet-level leaders were appointed and will establish the program governance and formal process and data exchange technical architecture for departments and entities to automate data sharing methods in a secure way. The engagement is divided into three Milestones, each with a set of deliverables described here:  
 

Milestone #1 - HIT Program Governance Model focused on developing the governance structure for the State HIT Program that will set in place a formal process for agencies to participate in inter and intra-department data exchange with the systems identified in the program’s Phase I Current State Assessment which established the program's portfolio. The first deliverables include a process framework that outlines in phases the information sharing process which includes developing the business processes, standards and specification development, architectural design and implementation, and finally operations and service-level agreement management. The Statewide Master Data Management Program Initiative being led in the Office of the Enterprise Architect at OIT will provide the infrastructure to enable data sharing through a managed service known as the Colorado Unique Personal Identifier, or CUPID, which will be offered through OIT.  The diagram below illustrates the vision for how departments and entities with health-related information will exchange information leveraging the Colorado information architecture, master data managment, and unique identifier CUPID infrastrucutre.   

***NOTE: This diagram is for illustrative purposes only to facilitate discussion and planning for future information sharing scenarios between the State and other entities such as CORHIO. 

 

Milestone #1 HIT Program Governance Model Deliverables

(All deliverables are available by request to the State HIT Program at COHIT@state.co.us)

 

HIE Governance- Organization, Roles and Responsibilities

HIE Governance- Agency Information Exchange Process

HIE Governance Framework

Milestone #2 - Agency Data Sharing Use-cases and Architecture Assessment is focused on agency-level architectural assessments of existing systems and data sharing practices to develop a data sharing classification model. The information collected is being used to develop business scenarios for each department that define the business process that will be affected or improved through data exchange. The scenarios will also identify partners with whom data exchange will occur, and understand the current and future interaction between exchange partners so that the technical requirements and exchange architecture may be created. The findings will be utilized to gain an understanding of what it will take to integrate systems and automate the data sharing processes across agencies that are predominately done manually today. Overall, we will prioritize inter-agency exchange and create a model that will meet our near-term objectives and is nimble to scale into the overall state architectural framework that is being developed through the Office of the Enterprise Architect in OIT.  The diagram below illustrates the HIT Program Agency Collaboration to date.

 
 

 

 

Milestone #2 Agency Data Sharing Use-cases and Architecture Assessment Deliverables

(All deliverables are available by request to the State HIT Program at COHIT@state.co.us)

 

HIT Program Collaboration - Provider Directory Integration

 

Agency Data Sharing Business Scenarios – CORHIO, HCPF, DORA

Agency Data Sharing- DORA CAVU License System & HPPP Profiling System High-level Application and Data Systems Assessment 

 

Milestone #3 - Interagency Data Exchange Architecture will deliver an exchange model for state-owned data sets that will include a concept future architecture, agency functional requirements necessary to exchange data, and agency and CORHIO technical system requirements for data exchange. Due to current financial environment in state government, HIT Program data sharing will be done in an incremental approach and be prioritized based on available funding. There are two priority data sharing areas that were identified by CORHIO, OIT's HIT Technical and Enterprise Architect Team, and HCPF and are the focus for the completion of Milestone #3. They are development of exchange models for obtaining health care facility and provider licensing data and identity information (for the near and long-term) to develop a provider directory, and a future-state concept architecture for exchanging data with the Department of Public Health & Environment's systems for immunizations, reportable lab orders and results for disease reporting and newborn metabolic screenings, and vital statistics.        

 

Milestone #3 Interagency Data Exchange Model Deliverables

(All deliverables are available by request to the State HIT Program at COHIT@state.co.us)

 

Facility Licensing Business Scenarios & Assessment

 Information Architecture Maturity Model

 

Information Integration Assessment Templates

 

State HIT Program Communications  

 

In an effort to provide consistent communication to stakeholders about the state HIT Program's progress and activities, as well as provide updates from across the state's numerous HIT initiatives, a monthly State HIT News Bulletin is published. Interested parties can access the Bulletin from this website or via email.  

 

 

 State HIT Program Contact Information

   

Lauren Plunkett

State HIT Program Director and Coordinator

Email: COHIT@state.co.us or direct at lauren.plunkett@state.co.us

Phone: 303-764-7701