Contexture, the nonprofit organization that was formed in 2021 by the merger of health information exchanges in Arizona and Colorado, has now also added Quality Health Network (QHN), whose HIE helps medical and behavioral health providers in rural western Colorado.
Contexture has headquarters in Denver and Phoenix.
Executives at Contexture and QHN, who had announced last August that they were exploring a merger, said they enable HIE in different regions of Colorado, in addition to Contexture’s HIE in Arizona.
The organizations say they have worked well together in the past in terms of data sharing between networks, program partnerships and solutions.
QHN describes itself as a “Whole Health Information Exchange (WHIE)” that helps medical, behavioral, and social health providers in western Colorado securely share patient and client data that enhances care coordination, reduces duplication of services, and identifies individuals at risk so that efforts can be focused where they are needed most. QHN also powers Community Resource Network (CRN), a team-based service coordination platform that connects to QHN’s WHIE to boost community-wide health and make the integration of social determinants of health (SDoH) data possible.
“When Contexture and QHN began the affiliation process, we realized just how vital this coming together would be for the state of Colorado and beyond,” said Melissa Kotrys, CEO of Contexture, in a statement. “Our participants desire more than standard HIE services to meet their organizational objectives, and by affiliating with QHN, Contexture will continue to enhance our solution offerings to keep up with essential community health needs.”
Increasingly, regional HIEs are coming together to consolidate services in their state to gain economies of scale. In another example The Health Collaborative (THC), based in Cincinnati, transitioned its HIE customers to Columbus-based CliniSync in 2023. Similar mergers happened in Indiana and Michigan.
“Affiliating with Contexture is an important step forward for QHN’s participants as we work to provide the best possible HIE services, putting data into the hands of care providers when they need it,” said Marc Lassaux, QHN Executive Director and CEO, in a statement. “Our team is excited to provide enhanced services tailored to the needs of the medical, behavioral and social service providers we serve.”
A a Contexture affiliate, QHN will bring expertise in serving rural providers and care teams with unique challenges in complex healthcare landscapes. The combined organization is better positioned to serve its participants, compete for national opportunities and meet federal policy changes, Contexture said. This includes leveraging and expanding work by Contexture and QHN, enabling new solutions that include analytics, reporting functions and social determinants of health.
