July 2021
How You Can Help Spot Undiagnosed Hypertension 
Approximately 11 million U.S. adults with a usual source of healthcare have undiagnosed hypertension, placing them at increased risk for cardiovascular events, according to CDC estimates. Having high blood pressure (hypertension) is a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke.
The Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH) has established strategic partnerships with healthcare systems and organizations, including GaHIN, to implement an innovative approach to detect undiagnosed hypertension using electronic health records.

Goals of the project include:
  • Identify undiagnosed hypertension patients in Georgia using provider EHR
  • Establish clinical criteria for potentially undiagnosed hypertensive patients
  • Implement an algorithm to search electronic health records (EHR) for patients who meet the clinical criteria
  • Identify pool of patients who potentially have undiagnosed hypertension
  • Develop, test, and adopt Georgia specific recall protocol for the identified patients for re-evaluation and final diagnosis
  • Test and adopt workflow for recalling patients based on health system capacity
  • Identify the pool of patients who received a final diagnosis of hypertension

Here's How You Can Participate
  • Assist DPH in creating and testing clinical criteria to identify undiagnosed hypertension patients and implementing the criteria within your healthcare system
  • Develop, test, and adopt recall protocol for identified undiagnosed hypertension patients
  • Write reports and/or collaborate on publications based on the project

To learn more, please contact GaHIN’s Shirelle King, who is working closely with DPH on this project.
GaHIN Welcomes New Board Members
GaHIN’s Board of Directors represent a wide range of organizations and institutions involved with the planning and delivery of quality healthcare to Georgians. The Board provides critical guidance and insights to GaHIN, giving generously of their time and knowledge. The following individuals were elected to the Board at the June meeting:

Jeremy T. Meller
Chief Information Officer, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta
 
Fabio Van Der Merwe, CHC
Chief Executive Officer, DeKalb Community Service Board

Daphanie Scandrick-Keit
Executive Director, Office of Analytics and Program Improvement, Georgia Department of Community Health

Dev Watson, CHSP, CISM, CHCSP, CHSRAP
Chief Information Officer, Georgia Association for Primary Health Care
 
LaTonya M. White, A.S., B.S.
Deputy Director, Office of Public Health Informatics, Georgia Department of Public Health
July Update on New Tech 21 Project
GaHIN is currently focused on two areas within the implementation: the onboarding process and obtaining signed Master Member Agreements. Members need to sign a new GaHIN Master Member Agreement that swaps out IBM/Truven's name for Velatura. The executed agreement is required for Velatura to onboard members to the new system.

All member Discovery and kick-off calls have been completed and onboarding documents have been distributed to all members. With the receipt of the member agreement, Velatura will:
  • Ingest and map member historical data
  • Set up and test member physical connection to the Velatura network
  • Test Velatura software functionality and new data feeds for each member
  • Move members into production with successful completion of these steps

The new date for cutover of the system and Phase I go-live is October 1, 2021.

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