What is NCHEX?

The North Carolina Healthcare Exchange (NCHEX) is a voluntary statewide health information exchange (HIE) from the North Carolina Hospital Association to enable the secure, real-time exchange of standardized clinical information between providers using different electronic health record systems.

Why NCHEX?

NCHEX leverages existing technology and experience in many hospital and utilizes a proven HIE platform that powers existing exchanges to connect hospitals and physician practices. NCHEX can provide instant access to an NCHA hospital’s inpatient and outpatient claims history including all episodes in North Carolina for the last 5 years and support hospitals and eligible professionals in their efforts to achieve Meaningful Use in a cost efficient manner. NCHEX also supports sharing of information between hospitals, physicians and other care providers, as well as connection to existing community HIEs / RHIOs to rapidly expand HIE reach and coverage.

Who can join NCHEX?

The exchange will be open to all North Carolina medical providers. NCHEX seeks to connect with existing RHIOs / HIEs / HIT systems in North Carolina by leveraging the NHIN Connect and other HIE standards.

Who can join the NCHEX pilot?

The NCHEX pilot is open to providers and stakeholders who can help demonstrate delivering value through a health information exchange. We do not anticipate adding more hospitals to the pilot but do seek additional physician practices that are not owned by the Moses Cone or WakeMed systems but practice in these two medical service areas.

What does NCHEX do?

NCHEX allows medical providers to assemble a patient-centric continuity-of-care record composed of information from all NCHEX participants and displayed at the point of care via secure web access and EHR system linkages.

How much does NCHEX cost?

NCHEX builds on the NCHESS (North Carolina Hospital Emergency Surveillance System) infrastructure and experience, reducing costs and implementation time. Pricing for for NCHESS-IMC and non-IMC hospitals and physician practices is determined on an individual basis and consists of implimentation and 

How will NCHEX help medical providers demonstrate Meaningful Use?

NCHEX will support multiple Meaningful Use requirements around interoperability for hospitals and eligible professionals. We are actively working with the state and other key stakeholders to make our exchange part of North Carolina’s statewide HIE infrastructure. In fact, NCHEX was included as part of North Carolina’s HIE Strategic Plan published in October 2009 and we are actively working to incorporate functionality to meet the needs of several stakeholders, including  the North Carolina Department of Pubic Health, Community Care of North Carolina and CapitalCare Collaborative to provide custom access and data interchange capabilities for public health reporting, Medicaid case management and clinical care by safety net providers.