Health data infrastructure nonprofit celebrates record growth with significant partnerships and advancements

COLUMBIA, Md.: Propelled by historic expansion of its reach across diverse systems and state lines, CRISP Shared Services (CSS) today announced significant progress throughout 2024 toward its mission of providing localized and impactful health infrastructure and data exchange technology across the United States.

CSS continued its impactful work with CRISP, Maryland’s state-designated health information exchange (HIE) and Health Data Utility (HDU); CRISP DC, serving the District of Columbia; Connie, Connecticut’s state-designated HIE; Virginia Health Information, the state-designated health data organization in Virginia; West Virginia Health Information Network, which serves as the state’s only HIE; and healthEconnect, Alaska’s state-designated HIE, further demonstrating the nonprofit’s ability to create and scale tailored and responsive governance models and infrastructure that can serve unique needs anywhere.

“It was a monumental year for CSS to advance toward its mission to build infrastructure that can scale locally tailored and governed healthcare ecosystems in diverse jurisdictions throughout the nation,” said Craig Behm, president and chief executive officer of CSS. “For too long, state agencies and healthcare sectors have been siloed from one another and we’re proud to have pioneered new pathways that better integrate these systems, and we’re grateful for the partnerships that helped make that possible.”

CSS achieved numerous public health breakthroughs, including:

• Most notably, selection as one of three Implementation Center awardees under the newly launched $255 million National Implementation Center Program. The program, funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) through the Public Health Infrastructure Grant (PHIG), tasks CSS with providing infrastructure and implementation services to dozens of public health agencies across the nation over the next three years. The program positions CSS in a key role for the accelerated adoption of modern data exchange, with a goal of integrating health data into the public health ecosystem for more efficient and timelier public health action.
• Selection by the Maryland Dept. of Health to support the state’s public health technology and data modernization needs as it became the first in the nation to implement the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA). CSS, in partnership with eHealth Exchange, helped engineer a custom portal that successfully demonstrated TEFCA utilization for the first public health use case. This work is foundational to achieving critical national public health priorities established by federal agencies, including the CDC and Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. In addition, CSS tech supported other public health authorities as the CDC’s early demonstrators of TEFCA, including the Alaska Dept. of Health and Fairfax County Dept. of Health.
• Being named to the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO)’s inaugural Innovation Advisory Council, a multisector forum designed to drive collaboration between state and territorial health leaders and private sector executives. Serving alongside such industry leaders as CVS Health, Amazon Web Services, Deloitte and Leidos, the IAC aims to address critical public health challenges such as data modernization, healthcare access and health security.

“By modernizing and aligning how health data is exchanged across the local and national ecosystem, we give providers, public health agencies, and communities the tools to respond more effectively to emerging challenges, enhance care coordination, and address health inequities. Timely data exchange is key to improving health outcomes at scale which is core to our mission,” said Sheena Patel, MD, CMPE, executive director of public health data modernization at CRISP Shared Services.

CRISP Shared Services (CSS) is a nonprofit organization providing localized health infrastructure and data exchange technology and services to jurisdictions across the nation. CSS works with communities to develop industry-leading tools and programs designed to meet the specific needs of its local jurisdiction and populations, ultimately building innovative solutions for modern interconnected health networks. Today, CSS supports more than a dozen states and jurisdictions nationwide.

Fonte: Business Wire