Florida’s Skilled Nursing Facilities Exchanging Data at No Cost via ENS

Skilled Nursing Facilities (SNFs) are now live and exchanging data with the Florida Health Information Exchange (Florida HIE). The Florida HIE’s Encounter Notification Service (ENS) connects over 400 health care organizations including hospitals, Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), payers, thousands of physicians, and other health care providers statewide. ENS allows coordination across the continuum of care by providing real-time notice of patient health care encounters at connected facilities.

By connecting to ENS, SNFs are able to notify other network participants of their shared patients’ admissions and discharges. Additionally, SNFs are able to learn which network participants are working to coordinate care for patients admitted to their facility. ENS can also notify them when recently discharged patients are seen at connected hospitals statewide.

ENS covers 97% of acute care hospital beds in Florida, 86% of inpatient rehab hospital beds, and a growing number of SNF beds. ENS currently covers over 9 million subscribed-to identities in Florida and delivers over 1 million encounter notifications each month.
The Florida HIE Services does not charge SNFs to connect and share their data via ENS. Additionally, for SNFs participating in Medicaid, funding is available to assist with vendor technology fees to share data. SNFs in Medicaid can also receive hospital encounter data through ENS at no cost for the first year.

To learn more about ENS in Florida, please visit www.florida-hie.net or contact us at FLHIE_info@ainq.com.