After numerous healthcare security issues, Oregon is implementing Kentucky’s health insurance exchange program.
Oregon is officially transitioning away from working with Oracle America in an effort to create the state’s health insurance exchange program. After numerous healthcare security issues and problems with its own health insurance exchange program, Oregon announced that it is replacing the Oracle option with Kentucky’s system, according to The Oregonian.
Kentucky built its program in one year, using $253 million in federal funds. Oregon Medicaid Director Judy Mohr Peterson explained in a hearing of the House Interim Committee on Health Care that officials looked at eight different state programs before choosing Kentucky.
“The goal is …we will no longer be relying on Oracle technology,” Mohr Peterson said, according to the news source.
Kentucky signed up 182,000 people out of its 4.4 million population through its exchange as of Jan. 26 this year with few issues, according to a second Oregonian article. As of that same time, Oregon had not signed up any of its 3.9 million residents through the original program.
The main advantage for Kentucky was that it had an automated computer system to determine Medicaid eligibility, reported the news source. Oregon on the other hand had to build its Medicaid program from scratch.
“We built this in one year,” Audrey Tayse Haynes, secretary of Kentucky’s Cabinet for Health and Family Service, told the Oregonian. “There were times along the way where we ran into some problems. I gave him a heads-up, ‘Oh my goodness, we’ve found a problem, we’re going to see what the solutions are and I will update you.’ He knew when all of our testing was being done on the exchange. I made sure of that.”
Oregon’s healthcare security issues have been building up for some time. Just earlier this year, Cover Oregon experienced its 18th data breach. In the most recent incident, a woman claimed that she applied for health coverage through Cover Oregon and then received documents in the mail containing the names and birth dates of two other applicants.
Cover Oregon was working with Oracle Corp. in an attempt to create an exchange program for the state. After continuously missing deadlines, individuals were required to use a hybrid paper-online application process.
“We take the security and privacy or our customers very seriously and have policies and trainings in place to protect personally identifiable information of our consumers,” Cover Oregon spokeswoman Ariane Holm said at the time, adding that Cover Oregon regularly improves its procedures.
A successful health information exchange (HIE) must not only be secure, but it needs to have strong interoperability capabilities. As more healthcare organizations adopt new systems, it is essential that those systems are able to properly communicate with one another.
Complicated systems are not always the answer though, according to some healthcare experts. Last month, Dr. Charles Gutteridge, chief clinical information officer and consultant hematologist for Barts Health NHS Trust in East London explained why a “clear and simple vision” can have greater success. According to Gutteridge, access to online data is “beginning to revolutionize how others think about their health.” A simple plan paired with a secure system can help healthcare organizations of all sizes make a difference in patients’ care.
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