HLN Consulting, LLC – Software and Services for Public Health

HLN Participates in 12th Annual Stewards of Change Institute National Symposium

by Noam Arzton June 23, 2017

On June 19-20, 2017, Dr. Noam Arzt, President of HLN, participated by invitation in the 12th Annual Stewards of Change Institute National Symposium on behalf of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS). This symposium provided a unique opportunity to discuss key issues in data management and interoperability with a small, but diverse set of stakeholders across the health and human services. The symposium included a particular focus on issues surrounding the current opioid epidemic. In addition, a new National Interoperability Collaborative (NIC) was launched (with funding from the Kresge Foundation) to spearhead information sharing regarding interoperability strategies and activities. Though there was no CDC participation at this symposium, there was a very nice briefing from several representatives of the Department of Health and Human Services including the new National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, Dr. Don Rucker.

This symposium represents a welcomed expansion of the Stewards of Change focus from human services into the health domain. This expanded conversation will allow public health to participate more fully as the shift to our collective concern about wellness requires a more holistic view of people, their requirements, and their circumstances. We look forward to continuing engagement with this community and an opportunity to bring what we have learned in public health about interoperability into this new forum.

HLN Presents at 2017 OSEHRA Summit

by Noam Arzton June 23, 2017

On June 13, 2017, Michael Suralik, project manager at HLN, co-presented with Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) colleagues in a session titled “Update on the Immunization Project Workgroup” at the 2017 Open Source Electronic Health Record Alliance (OSEHRA) Summit. Mike discussed HLN’s continuing work with VA on implementing our ICE Open Source Forecaster with VistA, the current EHR system used by VA.

HLN’s ICE Open Source Immunization Forecaster Receives 2017 NVPO Upshot Award

by Noam Arzton June 8, 2017

On June 6, 2017, HLN was awarded the 2017 Upshot Award for Excellence in Vaccine Supply, Access, and Use by the National Vaccine Program Office (NVPO) for its ICE Open Source Immunization Forecaster. In the letter of award, Dr. Jewel Mullen, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health commented that,

HLN Consulting’s efforts on the Immunization Calculation Engine (ICE) are impressive. This powerful tool-including its open-source nature and seamless integration into clinical workflows-holds great promise for improving clinical decision-support and ultimately vaccination rates. Thank you for daring to innovate, collaborate, and lead in an area that is not only complex, but constantly evolving.

Mike Suralik, one of HLN’s project managers, was on hand to receive the award at the meeting of the National Vaccine Advisory Committee in Washington, DC. HLN is pleased to accept this award on behalf of the ICE project. While we have been the lead organization, we consider ICE to be a community effort of interested public health organizations, clinical users, and software developers. This project would not be a success without ongoing cooperation between these participants. ICE is an important product for the immunization community. It is collaboratively developed, maintained, and supported yet is freely available for use. We hope ICE can gain a broad acceptance not only here in the US but across the world.

See press release

CDSi Services and HIPAA

by Noam Arzton May 8, 2017

Clinical Decision Support (CDS) services such as HLN’s Immunization Calculation Engine (ICE) are modular, loosely-coupled components of larger systems accessed via web services in a service-oriented architecture (SOA). Under HIPAA, services provided to Covered Entities (CE) which involve protected health information (PHI) as defined in the statute are subject to the regulation. But are CDS services such as ICE subject to this regulation?

Open Source Software Hosting for Public Health

by Noam Arzton May 8, 2017

Introduction

HLN Consulting, LLC (HLN), a leading public health software application developer, has been at the forefront of Open Source software development, use, and support for public health. This has encompassed both the deployment and support of third-party Open Source products for our clients, and especially the development of new Open Source solutions. Since the vast majority of HLN’s work is government funded, software development activities conducted under “work for hire” agreements with government agencies often leads to public-private collaboration that results in Open Source products.