The Georgia Cancer Coalition, an independent, not-for-profit organization based in Atlanta, will use a statewide healthcare information exchange to share evidence-based medicine with community cancer care centers.

The exchange will serve as a trusted third party in the state to acquire, analyze and report de-identified patient data around quality measures from providers and hospitals that deliver cancer care.

The coalition has selected Salt Lake City-based Medicity to power its technology platform.

"We selected Medicity because they were the only vendor to supply these vital elements: 1) a culture of flexibility, which is key to building a sustainable business model; 2) an adaptable, scalable and secure platform; and 3) an HIE business model that aligns with our vision to improve quality of cancer care as well as support translational research," said Bill Todd, the coalition's CEO.

"Typically, discoveries around cancer care can take up to 15 years to go from the bench to the bedside. By leveraging Medicity's proven HIE technology, we can share evidence-based medicine in community care settings – where 85 percent of cancer care takes place – as well as communicate real-world results to research organizations to accelerate valuable research," he said.

The GCC will deploy the exchange in three phases over approximately 9-12 months. The project will involve three initial provider sites and include data analysis, development of the HIE design and deployment.

The project will also integrate the de-identified patient data into the exchange's analytics dashboard solution for measurement of provider and hospital performance, based on 52 quality-of-care indicators for Georgia identified by the Institute of Medicine.

"Medicity enables HIE and hospital customers to deliver seamless access to patient information stored in disparate systems across multiple care locations, resulting in improved patient care and reduced healthcare costs," said Kipp Lassetter, MD, the CEO of Medicity. "We are pleased to partner with the Georgia Cancer Coalition to launch what we believe is the first evidence-based, statewide cancer quality measurement program in the country. This ground-breaking initiative provides a replicable model for other states or regions seeking to establish similar HIEs."

The GCC plans to roll out the exchange to other cancer care providers across the state and finalize its sustainability model and business plan upon successful completion of the initial phases.

"Medicity's HIE platform provides the unique ability to meet our providers' needs, wherever they are in the spectrum of electronic medical record (EMR) adoption and clinical data exchange," said Todd.  "For example, the exchange will be able to pull de-identified patient data from multiple hospitals, physicians and other ancillary clinical data sources and integrate that data, regardless of its origin, directly into our core platform, thus enabling state-wide interoperability."