A new partnership aims bring sustainability and innovation to providers in systemically underserved communities and safety net organizations.

OCHIN, which partners with national provider networks and boasts the largest collection of community health data in the country, and OSIS, which says it represents the nation's largest network of NextGen Health Centers, will collaborate to bring greater choice in electronic health record platforms to providers and improve access reliability to 30% of health center patients in the United States.

WHY IT MATTERS

Technical staffing shortages and rising operational costs demand efficient digital systems to enable high-quality care across healthcare. 

Portland, Oregon-based OCHIN and OSIS in Cincinnati know this all too well and are leaning in. 

The organizations said in their partnership announcement Tuesday that they are helping to address workforce shortages by tapping into the available talent and technical expertise across both organizations to fill critical roles.

OCHIN and OSIS are standing together to "make an even greater and more enduring impact for the providers, patients and communities we serve," according to a statement from Abby Sears, OCHIN's president and CEO.

The two national nonprofit organizations collectively serve more than 39,000 providers and more than 9.3 million patients. While OSIS focuses on NextGen Healthcare EHR, EPM and EDR technology assistance to Community Health Centers around the country, OCHIN provides clinical insights and offers an instance of Epic to expand patient access and improve interoperability in rural and medically underserved communities.

The organizations will remain independent, but are partnering to share resources to problem-solve across both networks and drive operational savings through collaborative innovation, they said.

"OSIS and OCHIN have simultaneously been working to tackle the same issues that impact our Community Health Center Community," Jeff Lowrance, OSIS CEO, said in a statement.

In addition to supporting members' daily operations by reducing technology burdens and better connecting care teams, OCHIN and OSIS said their partnership also aims to elevate health center representation among national health equity research and advocacy.

THE LARGER TREND

Partnerships through accelerators and organizations are helping to address the ongoing challenge of finding and retaining technical employees with the digital skills to maintain and protect complex healthcare networks and data.

Despite an escalating demand for health IT, last year's study by analytics firm GlobalData highlighted the persistence of the tech skills shortage. 

Among the survey's respondents, 43% said a lack of specialized skills and talents was the primary obstacle, with 40% adding that a lack of insufficient funding and 36% citing organizational silos as additional obstacles.

ON THE RECORD

"At the heart of the new OCHIN and OSIS partnership is a shared belief that today's healthcare system requires innovative approaches to connecting and transforming access to care," Sears said in a statement.

Andrea Fox is senior editor of Healthcare IT News.
Email: afox@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.