News
How a Denver blockchain firm is making sense of health-care data
Denver Business Journal
August 20, 2018
By Andrew Dodson – Reporter, Denver Business Journal
Aug 20, 2018, 7:54am MDT
BurstIQ, a three-year-old Denver blockchain company, recently made headlinesfor its first-in-the-state deal with three Colorado clinical health data organizations that the company says could revolutionize HIPAA-compliant data aggregation and reporting.
The state-funded pilot project centers around a partnership between BurstIQ and Colorado Regional Health Information Organization (CORHIO), Quality Health Network (QHN) and Colorado Community Managed Care Network (CCMCN). The initial pilot runs through 2019, officials said, but the company plans to continue working with the three organizations after it wraps up.
While Colorado is emerging as a hub for blockchain technology — which is most associated with cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin — there’s still plenty of confusion around the technology.
Denver Business Journal spoke with Amber Hartley, chief corporate development officer at BurstIQ, and Frank Ricotta, BurstIQ’s CEO, to find out what this new initiative could mean for the health-care industry.
SecurityIt’s no secret that a top priority for health data organizations is security, and that’s exactly what blockchain technology promises. Blockchain allows computer networks to communicate with one another without using a centralized authority, like a data center. If a hacker breaks through the encryption of a data center, they could get access to everything inside.
But blockchain technology also promises to be transparent, which is a bit contradictory. Blockchain technology in the financial sector, for instance, adds a layer of accountability to large businesses because customers can easily track all holdings and transactions that have taken place. That’s a non-starter, though, for health data, Hartley said.
BurstIQ’s technology wraps an extra layer of security by putting permissions on every piece of data that comes into the system. Without that permission, you can’t view that specific piece of data.
“Our platform allows you to decide who can see the data in a very specific and at a very granular level, as opposed to other entities, which essentially can give access to entire records,” Hartley said.
ApplicationRicotta and Hartley say the biggest promise the technology holds are the types of platforms it can create for businesses and individuals.
Big pharmaceutical companies, for instance, often have difficulty in recruiting clinical trial participants, Hartley said.
If an individual is interested in clinical trials to treat muscular dystrophy, that person can create a consent contract inside the blockchain that can be shared with academic or commercial researchers.
A big pharma company can query individuals with a specific medical profile and if they find a match, they can directly reach out and say that person is a good candidate for a specific clinical trial.
“It creates new product opportunities and increases value in the market by allowing them to quickly create these data-enabled partnerships,” Harley said.
More on the dealBurstIQ hatched out of the 10-10-10 Health initiative in 2015. Talks with CORHIO about the pilot program funds by the state started about six months ago, Ricotta said. As the opportunity matured, the two other organizations were brought into the fold.
The biggest challenge, Ricotta said, was that the three organizations all had different data sets that needed to be reported into the state-run tools in a seamless way.
“Our technology allows them to aggregate the data they needed and best present it to the state — all while maintaining audibility and traceability of the data,” he said.
Barbara Martin, director of the Colorado State Innovational Model, also said the technology should help reduce administrative costs of reporting and help providers better prove their value to health plans.
BurstIQ is moving its 12 employees from Lower Downtown to the new Catalyst Health-Tech Innovation building in Denver's River North neighborhood in the coming weeks.
Denver Business Journal
August 20, 2018
By Andrew Dodson – Reporter, Denver Business Journal
Aug 20, 2018, 7:54am MDT
BurstIQ, a three-year-old Denver blockchain company, recently made headlinesfor its first-in-the-state deal with three Colorado clinical health data organizations that the company says could revolutionize HIPAA-compliant data aggregation and reporting.
The state-funded pilot project centers around a partnership between BurstIQ and Colorado Regional Health Information Organization (CORHIO), Quality Health Network (QHN) and Colorado Community Managed Care Network (CCMCN). The initial pilot runs through 2019, officials said, but the company plans to continue working with the three organizations after it wraps up.
While Colorado is emerging as a hub for blockchain technology — which is most associated with cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin — there’s still plenty of confusion around the technology.
Denver Business Journal spoke with Amber Hartley, chief corporate development officer at BurstIQ, and Frank Ricotta, BurstIQ’s CEO, to find out what this new initiative could mean for the health-care industry.
SecurityIt’s no secret that a top priority for health data organizations is security, and that’s exactly what blockchain technology promises. Blockchain allows computer networks to communicate with one another without using a centralized authority, like a data center. If a hacker breaks through the encryption of a data center, they could get access to everything inside.
But blockchain technology also promises to be transparent, which is a bit contradictory. Blockchain technology in the financial sector, for instance, adds a layer of accountability to large businesses because customers can easily track all holdings and transactions that have taken place. That’s a non-starter, though, for health data, Hartley said.
BurstIQ’s technology wraps an extra layer of security by putting permissions on every piece of data that comes into the system. Without that permission, you can’t view that specific piece of data.
“Our platform allows you to decide who can see the data in a very specific and at a very granular level, as opposed to other entities, which essentially can give access to entire records,” Hartley said.
ApplicationRicotta and Hartley say the biggest promise the technology holds are the types of platforms it can create for businesses and individuals.
Big pharmaceutical companies, for instance, often have difficulty in recruiting clinical trial participants, Hartley said.
If an individual is interested in clinical trials to treat muscular dystrophy, that person can create a consent contract inside the blockchain that can be shared with academic or commercial researchers.
A big pharma company can query individuals with a specific medical profile and if they find a match, they can directly reach out and say that person is a good candidate for a specific clinical trial.
“It creates new product opportunities and increases value in the market by allowing them to quickly create these data-enabled partnerships,” Harley said.
More on the dealBurstIQ hatched out of the 10-10-10 Health initiative in 2015. Talks with CORHIO about the pilot program funds by the state started about six months ago, Ricotta said. As the opportunity matured, the two other organizations were brought into the fold.
The biggest challenge, Ricotta said, was that the three organizations all had different data sets that needed to be reported into the state-run tools in a seamless way.
“Our technology allows them to aggregate the data they needed and best present it to the state — all while maintaining audibility and traceability of the data,” he said.
Barbara Martin, director of the Colorado State Innovational Model, also said the technology should help reduce administrative costs of reporting and help providers better prove their value to health plans.
BurstIQ is moving its 12 employees from Lower Downtown to the new Catalyst Health-Tech Innovation building in Denver's River North neighborhood in the coming weeks.
Colorado health data organizations partner with startup to pilot blockchain-based platform
Denver Business Journal
August 15, 2018
By Monica Vendituoli – Reporter, Denver Business Journal
Aug 15, 2018, 2:49pm
Three Colorado clinical health data organizations have partnered with the Denver-based blockchain health-care data company BurstIQ in a first-of-its-kind project funded by a state initiative, a news release said Wednesday.
"This partnership is truly the first of its kind in Colorado," Frank Ricotta, the CEO of BurstIQ, said in a statement. "The ability for disparate data systems across the health-care ecosystem to interact and share data is critical. We applaud CORHIO, QHN, CCMCN and the state of Colorado for leading the way on blockchain and we're honored to help them accomplish their vision."
The release added that this partnership is the first to use blockchain technology for HIPAA-compliant data aggregation and reporting in the state of Colorado.
Colorado Regional Health Information Organization (CORHIO), Quality Health Network (QHN) and Colorado Community Managed Care Network (CCMCN) have partnered with BurstIQ to enable the aggregation, consolidation and sharing of clinical quality measure data across the state of Colorado.
The Colorado State Innovation Model is funding the collaboration.
Created in 2013, the Colorado State Innovation Model is an initiative run by the governor’s office that tests alternative payment models, among other tasks.
The program is funded by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
"Health information technology is one of the foundational pillars of SIM, and it is rewarding to see this work come to fruition," Colorado State Innovation Model Director Barbara Martin said in a statement. "This solution will help reduce the administrative burden of reporting, and help providers prove their unique value to health plans, which is a core component to success with APMs."
Colorado is emerging as a hub for blockchain technology, best known for supporting cryptocurrencies, allows computer networks to communicate with one another without using a centralized authority.
In June, Gov. John Hickenlooper appointed 12 people to the Council for the Advancement of Blockchain Technology to help promote and set blockchain policy for the state.
Denver Business Journal
August 15, 2018
By Monica Vendituoli – Reporter, Denver Business Journal
Aug 15, 2018, 2:49pm
Three Colorado clinical health data organizations have partnered with the Denver-based blockchain health-care data company BurstIQ in a first-of-its-kind project funded by a state initiative, a news release said Wednesday.
"This partnership is truly the first of its kind in Colorado," Frank Ricotta, the CEO of BurstIQ, said in a statement. "The ability for disparate data systems across the health-care ecosystem to interact and share data is critical. We applaud CORHIO, QHN, CCMCN and the state of Colorado for leading the way on blockchain and we're honored to help them accomplish their vision."
The release added that this partnership is the first to use blockchain technology for HIPAA-compliant data aggregation and reporting in the state of Colorado.
Colorado Regional Health Information Organization (CORHIO), Quality Health Network (QHN) and Colorado Community Managed Care Network (CCMCN) have partnered with BurstIQ to enable the aggregation, consolidation and sharing of clinical quality measure data across the state of Colorado.
The Colorado State Innovation Model is funding the collaboration.
Created in 2013, the Colorado State Innovation Model is an initiative run by the governor’s office that tests alternative payment models, among other tasks.
The program is funded by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
"Health information technology is one of the foundational pillars of SIM, and it is rewarding to see this work come to fruition," Colorado State Innovation Model Director Barbara Martin said in a statement. "This solution will help reduce the administrative burden of reporting, and help providers prove their unique value to health plans, which is a core component to success with APMs."
Colorado is emerging as a hub for blockchain technology, best known for supporting cryptocurrencies, allows computer networks to communicate with one another without using a centralized authority.
In June, Gov. John Hickenlooper appointed 12 people to the Council for the Advancement of Blockchain Technology to help promote and set blockchain policy for the state.
EMPI helps Colorado network better identify vulnerable residents
HealthData Management
June 21, 2018
The Colorado Community Managed Care Network, comprising 20 community health centers and more than 200 clinic sites that include school-based clinics and pharmacies, is making a push to improve population health management and the health status of the state’s safety net population of uninsured, Medicaid-covered and other vulnerable individuals.
“We are building a digital safety net to protect patients and providers and make sure no one falls through the cracks,” says Jason Greer, CEO at the Denver-based network. “We want to work with healthcare businesses, healthcare communities, payers and public health agencies to help support Colorado families.”
For example, on the business side, providers know they have to demonstrate more transparency and accountability for how they operate, but they want performance metrics to be fair. Historically, payer quality measures have been incomplete because insurers are only using claims data.
To more effectively manage its data to demonstrate performance in an accountable care environment with the goal of improved outcomes and higher reimbursements, CCMCN adopted the enterprise master patient index software of VisionWare to create a single view of each patient, lower the maintenance costs of data management and referral hand-offs, enable data stewardship to be managed by non-technical staff, and improve validation and quality reports.
CCMCN considered many vendors before selecting VisionWare, with only a handful of them being able to provide an enterprise level solution. “VisionWare had the most robust toolset that allowed us to manage person matching on our own,” Greer recalls.
Prior to implementing VisionWare, CCMCN had internal MPI systems that required persons with strong technical skills to manage them, but Greer wanted all staff to be empowered and more efficient, which the new software supports. “Our staff can log in and manage patient matching and program administration without having to know coding language. This has allowed us to free up our engineers for other work and leverage all of our employees in the most efficient and productive way.”
Most recently, CCMCN is focusing on using data to support public health priorities, identifying vulnerable persons such as pregnant women who are not getting regular checkups, or persons with addictions that are not being addressed. With every individual existing in multiple data sources, VisionWare is being used to identify the same person across many data sources.
“The bottom line is that we are using an enterprise-level information system to support the healthcare system and to protect vulnerable families," Greer says.
Source: https://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/empi-helps-colorado-network-better-identify-vulnerable-residents
HealthData Management
June 21, 2018
The Colorado Community Managed Care Network, comprising 20 community health centers and more than 200 clinic sites that include school-based clinics and pharmacies, is making a push to improve population health management and the health status of the state’s safety net population of uninsured, Medicaid-covered and other vulnerable individuals.
“We are building a digital safety net to protect patients and providers and make sure no one falls through the cracks,” says Jason Greer, CEO at the Denver-based network. “We want to work with healthcare businesses, healthcare communities, payers and public health agencies to help support Colorado families.”
For example, on the business side, providers know they have to demonstrate more transparency and accountability for how they operate, but they want performance metrics to be fair. Historically, payer quality measures have been incomplete because insurers are only using claims data.
To more effectively manage its data to demonstrate performance in an accountable care environment with the goal of improved outcomes and higher reimbursements, CCMCN adopted the enterprise master patient index software of VisionWare to create a single view of each patient, lower the maintenance costs of data management and referral hand-offs, enable data stewardship to be managed by non-technical staff, and improve validation and quality reports.
CCMCN considered many vendors before selecting VisionWare, with only a handful of them being able to provide an enterprise level solution. “VisionWare had the most robust toolset that allowed us to manage person matching on our own,” Greer recalls.
Prior to implementing VisionWare, CCMCN had internal MPI systems that required persons with strong technical skills to manage them, but Greer wanted all staff to be empowered and more efficient, which the new software supports. “Our staff can log in and manage patient matching and program administration without having to know coding language. This has allowed us to free up our engineers for other work and leverage all of our employees in the most efficient and productive way.”
Most recently, CCMCN is focusing on using data to support public health priorities, identifying vulnerable persons such as pregnant women who are not getting regular checkups, or persons with addictions that are not being addressed. With every individual existing in multiple data sources, VisionWare is being used to identify the same person across many data sources.
“The bottom line is that we are using an enterprise-level information system to support the healthcare system and to protect vulnerable families," Greer says.
Source: https://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/empi-helps-colorado-network-better-identify-vulnerable-residents