CUSTOMER: Georgia Health Information Network
CHALLENGE: Efficiently connect hundreds of disparate clinical and social care systems
SOLUTION: InterSystems Unified Care Record, InterSystems EMPI, InterSystems Health Insight
OUTCOME: Whole-person care improves access to services and boosts outcomes
The Georgia Health Information Network (GaHIN) is Georgia’s state-designated health information exchange (HIE), dedicated to creating a healthier Georgia through secure, seamless sharing of patient information. The nonprofit organization connects hospitals, clinics, state agencies, social care organizations, and regional HIEs with a single purpose: to deliver the right information to the right people at the right time. GaHIN uses several InterSystems solutions to power GeorgiaUnify®, one of the nation’s most comprehensive social care integration platforms.
The Challenge: Connecting Clinical Care with Social Care
Georgia is a largely rural state with diverse healthcare needs and substantial social determinant challenges. Many residents struggle with housing, food insecurity, behavioral health needs, and other issues that affect their health and well-being. In fact, socioeconomic factors and physical environment can impact a person’s health by as much as 50%.
The organizations that support these individuals face challenges of a different sort. Many are hampered by siloed information systems that make it difficult to share data or understand a person’s full history. Healthcare providers and social care agencies typically exchange information via paper, phone calls, and emails— an inefficient and error-prone process that leads to delays, missed connections, and gaps in care.
To address these challenges, Georgia’s Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities awarded GaHIN a grant to establish a statewide social care integration platform. The project sought to create a closed-loop referral network connecting:
- 22 Community Service Boards (CSBs)
- Five state inpatient behavioral health facilities
- 66 community organizations like the United Way and Salvation Army
- Multiple maternal health clinics and additional local support agencies
By improving electronic communications, healthcare providers and social services organizations can make better-informed decisions, improve care coordination, and reduce the burden on already stretched staff. But interconnecting and exchanging data across diverse IT systems poses a variety of technical challenges. Different vendors and platforms support different data standards and formats. Connecting dissimilar systems can be a resource-intensive, time-consuming proposition.
The Solution: InterSystems Breaks Down Interoperability Barriers
GaHIN turned to InterSystems to streamline integration efforts, simplify onboarding, and accelerate the introduction of the GeorgiaUnify platform. Since 2023, the organization has relied on InterSystems solutions to power an array of healthcare data connectivity and exchange services, and is well-versed in their performance, availability, and scalability benefits. Today, GaHIN connects over 24,000 providers and practitioners, providing access to over 11.5 million patients and supporting over 19 million record retrievals per year.
“InterSystems is the one part of the system we never worry about. It just works,” explains Dr. Denise Hines, Executive Director, GaHIN. “It allows us to focus on what we do best—connecting communities and delivering whole-person care.”
InterSystems Unified Care Record, InterSystems EMPI™, and InterSystems Health Insight help GaHIN efficiently connect care providers and community services organizations and boost outcomes by unifying patient records, linking and reconciling identity records, and transforming raw data into meaningful and actionable insights.
Executive Director, GaHIN
The Results: A Groundbreaking Model for Whole-Person Care
GeorgiaUnify makes it easy for health systems, public health agencies, providers, and hospitals to exchange information and collaborate with a wide range of social care organizations. It facilitates whole-person care, integrating behavioral, social, and clinical data to improve access to services and boost outcomes. Key capabilities and benefits include:
- Referral management and closed-loop tracking: Clinicians and social care agencies can send and receive electronic referrals, monitor status, and confirm when services are delivered, ensuring vulnerable individuals don’t get lost in the process.
- Longitudinal whole-person records: Care teams gain a unified view of a patient’s health and social care data that spans providers, settings, and encounters.
- Statewide resource directory: Care teams can search for community resources to match patients with appropriate services quickly.
- Reporting and analytics: Organizations can analyze referral patterns, service utilization, social-risk trends, and community needs to support quality improvement efforts and evaluate the impact of whole-person care initiatives.
Community Service Boards deliver frontline behavioral health, developmental disability, and substance-use services to some of Georgia’s most susceptible residents. Many CSBs operate with limited staff, paper-intensive processes, and fragmented systems that make it difficult to access timely information about the individuals they serve. GeorgiaUnify gives these organizations a clearer view of each client’s needs by providing behavioral-health, medical, and social care data in one place.
GeorgiaUnify also streamlines referrals between CSBs, hospitals, public-health programs, and community-based organizations. Staff can easily see whether a referral has been received, understand where a client is in the process, and confirm when follow-up services have been completed. The platform helps CSBs strengthen collaboration with partner agencies and ensure that individuals do not fall through the cracks during critical transitions.
“Behavioral health does not exist in isolation. GaHIN helps us understand the full picture including behavioral health, clinical needs, and social supports, including referrals. This helps us to deliver more coordinated, whole-person care.”
— Ishmael Muhammad, Jail In-Reach Case Manager, Claratel Behavioral Health
