Joel Ryba, has served as COO of Hixny since 2009. He has become a true leader in HIE using Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) and is a highly sought-after expert within the IT industry. He has helped to position Hixny as a leader in healthcare IT not only in the state, but nationwide by moving the organization forward in its growth and interoperable usage.

Hixny’s success is due in large part to Ryba’s steadfast execution and creativity in connecting all of the varying pieces of healthcare and electronic medical record (EMR) systems and making them work in a standardized format.

Q: Tell us a little about Hixny.

A: Hixny connects providers, patients and organizations to improve care coordination and reduce healthcare costs across our community. We are a Regional Health Information Organization (RHIO) based in the Capital Region of New York. Our RHIO comprises more than 700 participating entities and provider locations in our region including hospitals, physician practices, health plans, allied health providers and community partners.

Hixny is a unique community collaborative striving to transform healthcare and population health, using information as a strategic enabler.

Q: What role does HIE play in that mission?

A: HIE provides the ability to electronically move clinical information among disparate healthcare information systems to providers and patients in real time. We believe we can leverage the HIE with clinical intelligence to support our members and participants in achieving the Triple Aim, of improving the patient experience, improving population health and reducing the overall per capita cost of healthcare. 

Hixny’s HIE has processed more than one billion clinical messages and manages more than 25 terabytes of data. Yet, it is not the data itself, but how it is converted to information and acted upon that makes a difference.

Much of our focus today is on creating clinical intelligence that triggers informed action through the use of event notifications, alerts, and result and report delivery, among other innovative services. In addition to the many ways that we offer healthcare professionals in our region to collaborate, we are developing a mobile application. This will deliver alerts to healthcare providers and community partners throughout our region in support of risk-bearing entities like ACOs, Health Homes and DSRIP PPSs with real-time actionable intelligence to a readily accessible tool – the smartphone.

Q: Tell us about one of your most recent projects, Hixny’s Secure Patient Portal.

A: Patients are being overwhelmed by portals. They get a new login every time they see another doctor or visit another clinic or sign up for a health plan. They may have one from their employer, and if they manage care for children, parents, siblings or other loved ones, they have even more sites to manage. In addition, all of those portals typically only provide a fragment of their health record. The Hixny portal, on the other hand, provides consumers with their community record, which they can securely view, download and transmit, as needed.

We believe that one of the best ways to reduce healthcare costs for a population is more effective patient engagement. If we provide consumers the right information, we can potentially empower them to improve their health, by modifying behaviors and complying with treatment plans. Through real-time, secure access to their electronic medical records, patients in our region have the ability to play a vital role in coordinating their own care.  

Q: How does the Hixny patient portal foster more meaningful patient engagement, and why is that important?

A: With the ability to securely view, download and transmit a community record to their providers, patients are becoming empowered in our region like never before. For many consumers, it empowers them to help coordinate their own care. The portal also helps educate patients through an e-library, which gives them information relevant to their conditions. They can use the portal to transfer records to other providers and to view health-related news. We will be continuing to add new features that support enhanced patient/provider partnerships – things like secure messaging and prescription refill requests. 

Most people think of doctors or other clinicians as care managers, but the patient is actually the principal care manager, so if we want to improve care coordination, we have to empower our patients. A lot of people talk about getting patients engaged – most patients are already very engaged – after all, it is their health that is at stake. What we really need is to make it easy for patients and providers to become partners in care and to manage that care together. Our portal is a step toward achieving this critical goal.