Teresa Rivera joined the Utah Health Information Network in 2007. As President & CEO, she is accountable to ensure that UHIN achieves its mission of providing services that reduce healthcare costs and improve quality and access for the community through exchange and use of administrative and clinical information. UHIN’s broad membership includes all the hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers, national laboratories and approximately 90% of the medical providers in Utah.
Teresa’s past experience includes responsibility for operations as the Vice President of Benefit Administration at BlueCross BlueShield of Utah and client relations as the Vice President of Client Relations at HealthCare Insight, a fraud and overpayment discovery service. She has had the opportunity to work with production, service, technical and membership areas in those companies. Her focus is service, employee development and community involvement which she believes is essential to business success.
Teresa holds a MBA with an emphasis in Human and Organizational Development and a Bachelor of Science, Summa Cum Laude, in Management with a minor in Computer Science from Westminster College
Teresa is married with two adult children. Her community activities have included working with the Utah Partnership for Education; Salt Lake Community College Customer Service Program and Executive Program Advisory Councils; Utah/Intermountain Chapter of the International Customer Service Association; and the Salt Lake Master Gardener Association and currently is a member of HIMSS and holds a Board position at Mountain West Chapter of AAHAM, Utah Chapter of HIMSS, Strategic HIE Collaborative, HIE User Group and National Association of Trusted Exchange, NATE.
00:00 Teresa talks about the start of the Utah Health Information Network (UHIN), one of the oldest HIEs in the country.
01:50 UHIN’s origin as a Clearing House, and what a Clearing House does in the healthcare industry.
03:00 UHIN’s vision for the future as it grew as an organization supporting quality effort.
04:30 UHIN’s decision to move towards the clinical focus, and the challenges it presented.
06:20 “One of the most difficult aspects of starting a Health Information Exchange is the governance.”
07:40 UHIN’s strategy to work with entities with the largest amount of data first, in order to build an advantage and grow as an HIE.
08:30 One of UHIN’s most successful tactics when growing and connecting with providers.
10:00 How UHIN’s connection with providers are benefiting patients and building new endeavors to improve patient health overall.
18:30 The next step in linking pharmacies to UHIN’s HIE initiatives.
21:00 The next piece in connecting pharmacies to HIEs in order to follow up that patients are receiving their medications.
24:30 Connecting Long Term Care to HIEs.
27:00 Long Term Care’s disqualifications for EHR and HIE reimbursement grants, and UHIN’s work to assist LTC providers with joining HIEs despite this.
29:40 The Poison Control Center and the benefits of its connection to HIEs as well.
32:00 HISPs and what they do.
34:00 Making HIEs interoperable.
37:50 You can learn more at www.UHIN.org.