Q&A: Moving From A PCMH To A 'Medical Neighborhood' Via Direct

Tom Sullivan | Government Health IT | May 31, 2012

Sharing medical records between different vendors' EHRs is one of the meaningful use Stage 2 measures that some folks would like to see yanked – but not MedAllies' Holly Miller, MD, or John Blair, MD.

In fact, Miller (pictured at left) will be demonstrating how MedAllies does just that this week during ONC’s Direct Implementation and Adoption Summit in Washington, D.C.on Thursday and Friday.

Prior to the summit, Government Health IT spoke with Blair and Miller, CEO and CMO, respectively, of MedAllies, about why that EHR interoperability measure should not only remain in Stage 2, but also be ratcheted-up in Stage 3. They also discussed how the Direct protocol that enables MedAllies' closed-loop referral system is serving as a technological foundation upon which the Hudson Valley, N.Y. area is moving beyond a group of patient-centered medical homes and into what they call patient-centered medical neighborhoods. Each also offered a prediction of what Amazon, eBay or Facebook might one day might be.