The Mississippi Division of Medicaid is being touted as the first Medicaid agency in the country to send and receive clinical data in real-time with a health system using an Epic electronic health record.

The exchange, powered by data analytics company MedeAnalytics, was with the University of Mississippi Medical Center, in Jackson, the state's biggest Medicaid provider.

"Giving doctors and nurses access to important information such as medications, diagnoses and allergies ensures that they can make the best care decisions for Medicaid patients," said John Showalter, MD, chief health information officer of UMMC, in a statement.

[Also: Judy Faulkner says 'Good software is art']

MedeAnalytics first helped the Mississippi Division of Medicaid with the groundwork by creating an enterprise master patient index and single patient identifier in 2014. To do so, the company analyzed and de-duplicated records from 2.3 million Medicaid beneficiaries. The medical records had been collected over more than a decade.

Today, the Medicaid division and UMMC can share Consolidated-Clinical Document Architecture patient summaries through UMMC's Epic EHR. MedeAnalytics expects it will receive about 3,500 clinical inquiries per day from UMMC.

[Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook]

MedeAnalytics points to several benefits of real-time access, including emergency room care due to a more complete patient record, improved case management since Medicaid utilization and remaining benefits are able to be quickly accessed, and better care management since immunization records and alerts help ensure more up-to-date care.

Twitter: @HealthITNews