As part of our new and ongoing Interoperability and HIE podcast series, this two-part conversation delves into how Manifest MedEx (MX) ensures seamless data sharing across diverse healthcare providers, including opioid treatment and mental health services, while adhering to strict privacy and security standards such as HIPAA. We explore successful integration examples that have aided in combating the opioid crisis, discuss the significant challenges of achieving interoperability between different EHR systems and providers, and examine the strategies MX has employed to overcome these obstacles and improve patient care coordination.
MODERATOR: Bill Cioffi MPPA, CHCIO, ITIL
Chief Information Officer, C10 Consulting
Bill Cioffi is also an Advisor at StarBridge Advisors, LLC, and is a nationally recognized leader in health IT. With over 15 years of experience in healthcare IT management, Bill has served as CIO at CenCal Health and North Sonoma County Healthcare District, where he spearheaded strategic technology initiatives, EHR implementations, and IT infrastructure improvements.
GUEST: Erica Galvez
Chief Executive Officer, Manifest MedEx
Erica Galvez is CEO of Manifest MedEx (MX), California’s largest nonprofit health information organization, and has extensive experience in health information exchange (HIE) and interoperability. She has been with Manifest MX since 2017, previously serving as Chief Strategy Officer and Chief of Staff. She has been instrumental in guiding the organization’s growth and expansion while ensuring MX delivers increasing value to participants. Erica has helped MX achieve a 500 percent increase in health records shared across the health data network. MX now shares information for 38 million Californians across more than 140+ hospitals, 17 health plans, and 2500+ ambulatory providers. Erica came to the HIE space through years of healthcare quality and patient safety research at The Joint Commission.
Before joining MX, Erica led the HIE efforts at Aledade that tripled the company’s hospital connectivity and evolved the use of health information to reduce avoidable hospitalizations and emergency department encounters. Prior to Aledade, she led the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT’s (ONC’s) Interoperability Portfolio, held a leadership position as one of the directors of ONC’s State HIE Program, and served as the program manager for AHIMA’s State-Level HIE Consensus Project.
GUEST: Josh Longiaru
IT Director, United Services, Inc.
As a champion for behavioral health and integrated care, Josh is passionate about advancing the conversation on interoperability and its critical role in transforming patient outcomes. With over 20 years’ experience in leading innovative programs at United Services and fostering collaboration among healthcare providers, he is committed to bridging gaps between physical and behavioral health systems to foster comprehensive care solutions. His hope is to get to a point where everyone has access to integrated care models that prioritize the whole person, ensuring that stigma and barriers are eliminated so that every patient can access the compassionate support they deserve.
The CHIME Opioid Task Force (OTF) was launched in early 2018 with a simple mission: to turn the tide on the opioid epidemic using the knowledge and expertise of the nation’s healthcare IT leaders. While our mission is simple, achieving it is not. Opioid addiction is a complex disease that requires long-term, if not lifetime, care from well-informed clinicians who are supported with easy-to-use and reliable tools.