MEDITECH, an EHR company, is joining forces with Missouri-based Citizens Memorial Hospital and Unite Us, a social care platform, to integrate MEDITECH's Expanse EHR offering with Unite Us' closed-loop referral system.

The aim of the collaboration is to help identify and deal with Unite Us' patient populations' social care requirements.  

By utilizing the Unite Us platform, clinical providers at the hospital will have the ability to access their patients' social care history as well as build and scale a coordinated care network, track outcomes, identify service gaps and monitor at-risk populations within the Expanse EHR.

Additionally, the Unite Us platform will allow Citizens Memorial Hospital to connect people in need with community-based resources via the Unite Missouri network, a coordinated care network consisting of healthcare, government and nonprofit organizations. 

The platform also gives a central point of contact where health and social services personnel can access and refer people to essential services, while monitoring progress and measuring outcomes.

"We are pleased to partner with Citizens Memorial Hospital and Unite Us to provide improved access to social care services and positively impact the overall health of their community," Shannon Connell, MEDITECH vice president of customer experience, said in a statement.

"This is an example of the extensibility of the Expanse platform to connect with innovative solutions that enable our customers to deliver the best and most holistic care possible."

THE LARGER TREND

Earlier this month, MEDITECH unveiled new advancements to its nationwide Traverse Exchange interoperability network that allows clinicians to access a comprehensive, longitudinal patient health history with data from various sources directly within their workflow. 

According to the company, the intelligent workflow lowers clinician burden by adding utility around the patient data captured and shared across MEDITECH hospitals and other sites connected via the trusted exchange framework and common agreement (TEFCA) framework.

In February, MEDITECH added a new web-based Expanse Outreach portal.  

Fully integrated into existing MEDITECH Expanse and Outreach workflows, the portal allows MEDITECH hospitals to develop new service lines and increase their business by connecting with non-affiliated organizations, including nursing homes, urgent care centers and doctors offices with the aim of efficiently processing laboratory services.

In 2021, Unite Us purchased NowPow, a digital social determinants of health-focused company for an undisclosed sum. NowPow’s technology is focused on population health and helps give patients referrals to community resources in order to address basic and other needs. 

The purchase occurred a month after Unite Us acquired health analytics firm Carrot Health.