Ciitizen HealthTech Firm Collabs With Rochester RHIO For Streamlined Data Sharing

Rochester RHIO is the first health information exchange (HIE) to collaborate with the Ciitizen network to facilitate the sharing of clinical data with patients, according to a press release on Monday (Aug. 16).

Ciitizen is a New York-headquartered healthcare technology startup that enables patients to obtain total control over their medical records. Its new Cures Gateway is intended to streamline compliance to make it easier for patients to obtain requested information.

See also: Report: Healthcare Providers Use AI To Solve Telemedicine’s Privacy Problem

The goal of the Gateway is to facilitate the delivery of patients’ health records from any personal health app, while staying in compliance with the 21st-Century Cures Act, which includes information blocking provisions.

“HIEs have provided valuable clinical data exchange services to their providers and other healthcare stakeholders for decades,” said Glenn Keet, VP of HIE Strategy for Ciitizen. “They are the natural and logical place to extend these services to patients, since they already aggregate and organize medical records for patients across many disparate suppliers. They can most easily comply with the new regulations to allow patients to obtain their records, while also performing this service for their providers and stakeholders so they don’t have to.”

Ciitizen is also working with other HIEs — HEALTHeLINK in Western New York and CRISP (Chesapeake Regional Information System for Patients) — in the integration of Gateway in the coming months, according to the release.

“Since the information blocking rules went into effect in April, we’ve seen HIEs struggle with compliance, as they are unaccustomed to sharing data with patients. Ciitizen’s Cures Gateway is designed to eliminate the complexity so HIEs can simply make electronic data available without the need for portals or additional patient staff to handle patient inquiries,” said Deven McGraw, co-founder and chief regulatory officer at Ciitizen.