ONE Platform Migration Project — Contexture Employee Perspective

In this series, we’ll be interviewing a diverse range of Contexture staff involved in the unified platform migration project, gathering their perspectives on the update as well as the internal and external value of this project.

Employee Interviews – ONE Platform Migration Project

Table of Contents

First up is our Chief Information Officer (CIO) Deanna Towne. Deanna oversees Contexture’s team of information technology professionals, as well as the development of new products to meet the needs of the Colorado and Arizona healthcare communities. She also oversees all IT systems required to support Contextures’ objectives and goals, as well as leads the digital transformation of the organization.

Deanna Towne, Chief Information Officer

1. What will be the greatest benefit to Contexture’s HIE Participants once ONE Platform is fully implemented?
   

   ONE Platform will bring together data from all existing HIE connections into a single view of the patient within our provider portal. As a result, the patient data will be available regardless of which state the patient resides, helping to give the most comprehensive view of patient information.

2. How will ONE Platform benefit Contexture and its workflows?
   

   The Contexture team has been busy supporting multiple HIE platforms to ensure the highest level of service and quality for our participants. The ONE Platform migration will allow the Contexture team to focus on a single, integrated approach to service and product delivery, resulting in greater customer service and improved technology support.
   

3. How will the ONE Platform update impact HIE Participant workflows?
   

   ONE Platform seeks to make data available in a variety of delivery methods to help get as much actionable information out to the community as possible. The goal is to always make information as effortless as possible to receive, either through push approaches or through easy-to-access and all-inclusive portals. Contexture will continue to promote HIE adoption and utilization through tools — such as single sign-on — to help keep providers as close to their preferred workflow as possible.
   

4. Why is this HIE platform upgrade important to you?
   

   As an HIE, providing accurate, timely and understandable information to our community is our most important task. ONE Platform pulls together disparate platforms and data to build a single platform for all HIE services, meaning our participants get cleaner, more reliable and complete information.
   

5. What one thing will add the greatest value as a result of this migration?
   

   The ONE Platform migration is allowing improved standardization of both inbound and outbound data, as well as a dedicated focus on data quality. These two critical items will result in improved data insights and analytics and, ultimately, help to meet the HIE mission of improving community health and wellness for the 30 million+ patients we serve.

Next up in the series is Contexture’s Director of Quality and Payment Programs Megan Reilly. Megan oversees Contexture’s Quality Improvement (QI) team that supports healthcare organizations with Practice Transformation and Technical Assistance, provides guidance on advanced payment models and clinical coding and helps providers navigate new regulations in healthcare and changes in clinical guidelines and compliance. 

Megan Reilly, Director of Quality and Payment Programs

1. How will ONE Platform help improve participants’ healthcare data quality and care delivery? 

ONE Platform will require participants to send specific data elements and code sets to support data analytics and actionable clinical data insights. Analytics can support the identification of gaps in care, enhance care coordination, support achieving population health goals, understand and address health disparities and predict patient outcomes; this will all support high-value, high-quality care. The actionable clinical data insights that drive from the analytics allow providers to make visible improvements to their quality initiatives. 

2. How will ONE Platform assist current and future participants in meeting any of the current or upcoming federal and state programs? 

ONE Platform can assist in current and future federal or state programs by supporting participants with electronic clinical quality measures (eCQMs). ONE Platform will utilize continuity of care documents to calculate numerator, denominator, exclusions and exceptions based on the eCQM value set requirements. Participation in ONE Platform’s eCQMs will allow participants to obtain their performance data, helping to identify and address gaps in care such as a patient who misses their breast cancer screening or a child who is not compliant with their vaccines. Identifying and addressing care gaps will increase quality measure performance and improve the community’s health and wellness. 

3. What is the Quality Improvement team’s role in implementing ONE Platform?

The QI team is working with participants on the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS) Differential Adjusted Payment Program (DAP), supporting the successful completion of DAP milestones during new implementations to ONE Platform. For participants with data quality milestones, the QI team will work with data senders and vendors to improve the quality of data being ingested into the health information exchange (HIE). Improved data quality and standardization allows for additional reporting capabilities, data insights and analytics. In addition, the QI team is supporting Colorado’s Medicaid Alternative Payment Model (APM) Participants in the transition to ONE Platform’s eCQMs. The QI team is working closely with KPI Ninja/Health Catalyst to complete data validation for each selected APM Measure and to compare each site, identifying and correcting any differences in performance rates. 

4. What QI program(s) will be most impacted by ONE Platform and how can Contexture participants prepare?

The AHCCCS DAP participants can expect Contract Year End (CYE) 2025 milestones related to ONE Platform integration activities. Participant-assigned Quality Improvement Advisors will be working with participants on building Quality Improvement plans for data quality initiatives, and the entire QI team is available to answer any questions to support reaching all DAP milestones.  

Colorado participants who are electronically submitting data for the APM through the Department of Healthcare Policy and Financing (HCPF) for eCQMS will transition to ONE Platform’s eCQMs. The Quality Improvement Team will work very closely with participants to provide real-time access to their data, data validation, data mapping, and ongoing workflow analysis to ensure the transition is seamless. 

5. Why is this platform upgrade important to you?

Participants will have real-time, high-quality, actionable data and information with ONE Platform’s focus on data quality and reporting functionality. This will allow for improved patient experience, better outcomes, lower costs, improved clinical well-being due to decreased administrative burden and equitable healthcare, achieving the Quintuple aim.   

6. What one thing will add the greatest value as a result of this platform migration? 

ONE Platform’s ability to transform health data into actionable information. Providing actionable information and supporting participants in the utilization of the data will contribute to a successful value-based healthcare system and improved, equitable healthcare in our communities.  

Next up in our series is Contexture’s Vice President of Integration Myriah Vandre. Myriah oversees the Integration team that supports Contexture and its technologies by building, testing and deploying Core Product interfaces, developing and defining internal specifications that are backed by HL7 Standards, protecting and mitigating negative impacts on Contexture’s environments and acting as the subject matter experts on all of the data that enters the HIE environment.

Myriah Vandre, Vice President of Integration

1. What is the Integration team’s role in implementing ONE Platform?

The Integration Team’s role is to onboard and implement all Colorado and Arizona participant interfaces to ONE Platform which includes all inbound HL7 and CCD data and migrating Alerts for Arizona participants to ONE Platform’s Notification service. Integration tasks include establishing connectivity between participants and HCI (VPN, web services, SFTP/DSM), OID branching, Domain/Taxonomy/Verato Source set-up, PreAnalysis of HL7 senders, interface spec and configuration reviews, UAT, bug issue identification and resolution, deployment of interfaces to production and transition to operations.

2. How will ONE platform improve data being sent to the Contexture environment?

Contexture will ingest and parse data elements that have not been contributed to the health information exchange (HIE) historically and will allow us to add new data to the HIE. Through a significant effort of the Data Governance Committee, we established the HL7 Gold Standard and code sets to ensure HL7 standards are applied to interfaces and allow for consistent and improved normalization across a myriad of HL7 contributors with differing electronic health records (EHRs).

3. What is one challenge that the integration team can help participants overcome when migration to ONE Platform begins?

The Integration Team’s collective years of HIE integration experience will ensure participants’ new interfaces are built with quality and adhere to HL7 standards. For those who are differential adjusted payment (DAP) participants, we will be able to evaluate the inbound data as we onboard them and have an opportunity to remedy any data quality issues, setting them up for successful DAP reporting measures. For data recipients, Contexture will be able to deliver data content in a standard format whereby we normalize code sets to HL7 standards and ensure data is sent in standard HL7 fields.

4. Why is this platform upgrade important to you?

The platform upgrade is important to me because it provides an opportunity to enhance our HIE portal and provide new features to participants who have been accessing the same portal for over 10 years. I’m even more excited to have all Contexture participants on the same platform which will allow the Integration Team to utilize the same interface engines and systems and reduce the number of systems we support daily.

5. What one thing will add the greatest value as a result of this platform migration?

The input all Contexture teams have contributed to ensure that our data needs are met now and in the future, and that data needs will be appropriately scoped to be supported by ONE Platform will be the greatest value-add. As standards change, and participants and vendors evolve to enhance and expand the data they contribute, Contexture will be better prepared with a foundation to ingest and support clinical data as needs arise upfront, rather than having to go back and modify our interfaces and products to include additional segments individually. A big thank you to all the teams who contributed input to ensure we captured as many use cases as possible.

Next up in our series is Contexture’s Vice President of Data Management, Lauren Girard.

Lauren leads Contexture’s initiatives for data management including data infrastructure, governance, quality assurance, reporting, visualization and population health improvement efforts including data quality improvement activities.

Lauren Girard, Vice President of Data Management

1. What detailed analytics from ONE Platform do you think will benefit participants the most?

Through Contexture’s various initiatives and feedback from stakeholders and participants, we understand the complex reporting requirements for the various federal, state and other value-based programs. ONE Platform provides us with the opportunity to incorporate current program reporting requirements and anticipate future reporting requirements as we monitor new regulations and expectations for our stakeholders. The most valuable data that can be offered is actionable and trusted data, knowing that you have the most recent lab, procedure or note that will be able to inform and improve a patient’s health at the point of care.

2. How will ONE Platform enhance efforts to address social determinants of health (SDOH) in the communities Contexture serves?

Social needs data is becoming increasingly important to our participant workflows and a priority for key stakeholders to address individual needs and health inequities. Social needs data is complex, and Contexture is working to support an infrastructure including data governance of the SDOH data elements. Contexture currently offers solutions for the various SDOH state reporting requirements. In Colorado, there are the Hospital Transformation Program notifications that support positive social needs screenings. In Arizona, we provide access to CommunityCares which helps meet the reporting requirements of Targeted Investment 2.0. The ONE Platform will support enhancements to these products and services, ensuring a comprehensive view of the individual’s medical and social needs and improving overall population health efforts.

3. How can ONE Platform support data needs for public health?

Through our recent experience with the COVID-19 pandemic, Contexture supported public health state agencies in supplying critical data needed to support a response. Without a Health Information Exchange (HIE) or HDU, public health agencies often lack access to timely clinical data sources to analyze and respond adequately. Drawing from the lessons learned over the last several years, we are working to have data elements segmented and available for reporting so that the data is more actionable and valuable through ONE Platform.

4. Why is this platform upgrade important to you?

As Contexture continues to evolve with the greater healthcare market, we understand the need to improve our capacity to manage and utilize data through a Health Data Utility (HDU) model. As an HDU, Contexture seeks to reduce data fragmentation and build a comprehensive view to support patient care that benefits the community. The platform upgrade helps to advance our technology and reporting capabilities, which support population health, quality improvement, care coordination, patient safety and more.

My career started in supporting quality initiatives and case management where the then triple aim became passion. The triple aim has evolved to the ‘quintuple aim’ seeking to improve patient outcomes, improve patient satisfaction, reduce total cost of care, improve provider satisfaction and provide equitable access to healthcare. The quintuple aim is not only important to me professionally but personally as well. Our new data opportunities with the platform upgrade mean that my clinicians can support improvement to my friends, family and my own healthcare.

5. What one thing will add the greatest value as a result of this platform migration?

The platform migration is allowing Contexture to utilize emerging data standards and technology to build a new infrastructure that supports additional reporting and use cases. By working to expand our data sets through the addition of disparate data and improving our data aggregation through advanced identity management and data governance, Contexture’s data will tell a story that supports and drives quality improvements to support overall population health for our communities.

Next up in our series is Contexture’s Vice President of Project Management Office, Janeece Lawrence. 

Janeece oversees the Project Manager teams responsible for the implementation of Contexture’s core products and services and development of organizational software. Janeece Lawrence, Vice President, Project Management Office 

Janeece Lawrence, Vice President of Project Management Office

1. What is the Project Management Office’s role in implementing ONE Platform? 

The PMO is responsible for implementing Arizona participants onto ONE Platform and managing the internal software development projects built within our internal infrastructure. Our implementations by the numbers consists of: 

• Connecting up to 440 participants who need ONE Platform access in order to send their clinical data via HL7 interface or CCD interface.  
   
• Migrating up to 445 participants to ONE Platform for implementation of our Notifications product. 
   
• Migrating up to 476 participants to our new Direct Secure Mail vendor platform. 
   
• Onboarding up to 20,391 users who need access to our new PC360 portal.  
   
• Overseeing 16 internal product development projects that will be managed in parallel to migrating participants to ONE Platform. These projects require various degrees of re-architecture as a result of ONE Platform. 
   
• Migrating historical Colorado and Arizona data (2016 to current) from NextGen to ONE Platform. 

2. How will ONE Platform enhance the user experience? 

As part of the ONE Platform project, one of our initiatives was to define the HIE Gold Standard to support data integrity and ensure effective interoperability. Onboarding Contexture participants to ONE Platform will establish a baseline HIE standard for all inbound HL7 and CCD interfaces, which reduces disparities between data sources for our participants who receive data from the HIE.

There are also participants located in both Arizona and Colorado who are maintaining multiple interface connections. ONE Platform will allow them to reduce that number by connecting to a single platform. If patients are treated in both Arizona and Colorado, Contexture’s PC360 Portal, Notification, Result Delivery and Consolidated Care Summaries products will include data from encounters across both states.  

3. How can data-sender participants best prepare for their integration to ONE Platform?  

We are implementing with participants now in order to give us enough time to connect interfaces and validate them. As a result, we are asking participants to maintain their current connection to NextGen so their data can be viewable in the HDH Portal and available for Notification reports. This means they will have a bifurcated feed into ONE Platform and NextGen until we officially cutover in Q2 of 2025. We need participants to secure their networking and/or EHR vendor resources who can support in establishing a VPN and/or webservice connection for CCD and HL7 delivery.

We also need participants who send data to Contexture to respond to the 4-week sprint schedule survey that was sent out on April 3, 2024. Within this survey, participants can select an implementation date; if the survey was not received, please contact an Engagement Solutions Manager to get scheduled for implementation. The PMO is managing 28 participants over a 4-week sprint schedule, with sprint dates available now through Q1 of 2025.

For participants who access the portal, receive ED and Inpatient Notification Reports and/or receive Consolidated Care Summaries, we will begin those implementations in Q1 of 2025 when the majority of those who send us data are connected to our production environment.
 

4. Why is this platform upgrade important to you? 

I’m a data geek and live by the premise, ‘the more data, the better.’ ONE Platform will enable participants to send more of the patient’s clinical record than they were able to previously.

Contexture has the capacity to accept all clinically relevant note types, all clinically and demographically relevant encounter updates, and radiologic imaging links to the participant’s PACS so both the report and image are available to the HIE community. ONE Platform removes any volume concerns and therefore removes any limitations previously placed on participants in terms of what data they send to the HIE. The more the HIE mirrors their EHR, the more the HIE can be the conduit for data sharing and exchange. This all reduces the burden and financial costs to participants of maintaining their own electronic point-to-point interfaces.

I’m also excited that we will now have a more complete patient record for those patients who have been treated and/or immunized in both Colorado and Arizona.  

5. What one thing will add the greatest value as a result of this platform migration?  

The best-in-class customer support. With all of our resources dedicated to ONE Platform, monitoring interfaces and ensuring data is coming in and going out as expected will be maintained at a level our participants can rely on.