Aprima Medical Software has selected the Kno2™ interoperability platform to enable its physician practices to easily and cost-effectively meet the requirements for electronic transmission of Transition of Care (TOC) documents mandated under Meaningful Use Stage 2. Aprima recognized the challenge its providers face under this measure and has partnered with Kno2 to remove connectivity barriers by delivering a solution that enables any provider throughout the care continuum to participate in Direct messaging communications, regardless of their level of technology adoption.

The TOC attestation requirements under Measure 2 require that an eligible provider (EP) that transitions or refers patients to another care setting or provider must provide a summary of care record and transmit more than 10 percent of such transitions and referrals electronically. This measure was identified as one of the top two most difficult to achieve in a 2014 iHealthBeat survey. Physician practices, in particular, continue to struggle to meet this requirement. Their electronic medical records (EMRs), such as Aprima, are Direct-messaging enabled, but they often must transition patients to providers that don’t have this capability, thus preventing the referring provider from meeting the MU2 TOC measure.

“Our goal is to always ensure that our physician practice customers have access to the best, most user-friendly solutions that allow them to focus on patient care,” said Mark Richards, SVP of Sales & Marketing at Aprima. “Although our customers have achieved a high rate of meaningful use Stage 1 attestation and our EMR is MU2 certified and capable of Direct messaging, we have practices that are reaching out to us because their referral partners are still paper-based or have not upgraded their EMR software to handle Direct messaging. Our providers have long-standing relationships with their referral partners and would prefer to send Direct messages to these organizations instead of establishing new referral workflows or implementing other solutions to meet the measure.

Richards continued, “Partnering with Kno2 removes the connectivity barriers for our providers by offering a simple, online option for unconnected referral partners to register and obtain their own Direct addresses, whether they have an EMR or not. They can also receive TOC documents from not only our providers but any provider that is Direct capable.”

Kno2’s free cloud-based solution allows any provider or provider organization to obtain their own Direct address(es) and connect within minutes to any other provider, whether or not they use an EMR. The Kno2 platform leverages providers’ existing technology infrastructure—including EMRs, fax machines, printers and scanners—and even creates structured clinical document exchange from unstructured content. This allows information to flow freely and conform to any clinical workflow.

“The Kno2 platform was designed to solve the healthcare system’s seemingly intractable interoperability challenges,” explained Jon Elwell, Kno2’s CEO. “We can provide lasting interoperability throughout the care continuum that can be adopted by every type of care provider—ranging from primary care, specialist physicians, hospitals and health systems to emergency medical services, long-term and post-acute care organizations, and home health and behavioral health providers.”