Connecting to the Clinical Portal
Overview
As part of organizations' participation in the statewide Health Information Exchange (HIE), they are given access to the HIE’s Clinical Portal electronic health record system. This web-based platform provides authorized end users with a robust toolkit to securely look up and retrieve real-time health record information for their patients in a view-only screen at the point of care in order to help improve the quality, safety, and delivery of patient care.
In an effort to ensure that participants have the necessary resources in place to support their connection to the Clinical Portal, the following sections provide an overview of the expectations and activities involved in the onboarding process.
This resource pertains to the HIE’s traditional web-based Clinical Portal platform, not its Clinical Portal InContext service. For more information about the Clinical Portal InContext service, visit the service’s online user guide.
To learn more about the features and functionality available in the traditional web-based Clinical Portal, visit the online user guide.
Project Expectations
Once contracting is complete, HealthInfoNet’s Onboarding Project Team will meet with participants to review and confirm the processes, resources, and dependencies involved in connecting to the Clinical Portal. Common topics explored during project kickoff meetings include:
Establishing roles and responsibilities among HealthInfoNet’s Onboarding Project Team and participants' business and technical leads and/or their vendors and partners.
HealthInfoNet requires participants to assign an internal Project Manager to convene required stakeholders, troubleshoot technical activities, and facilitate successful deliverables throughout the course of the onboarding project.
Additionally, HealthInfoNet recommends that participants identify staff members specifically to support required training/education activities and technical support needs.
Coordinating ongoing project check-in calls to monitor technical integration, validation outcomes, action items, and/or blockers.
Providing a high-level demonstration of the Clinical Portal’s available features and functionality.
Assessing participants' technical connection capabilities for securely accessing the Clinical Portal.
Discussing available Clinical Portal end-user user account roles (i.e., Clinician, Help Desk, and Auditor), and their respective responsibilities and obligations.
Reviewing the communication-related obligations and options involved in participating with the statewide HIE, including privacy, security, and compliance requirements as well as relevant HIE references in State of Maine statutes.
Depending on participants' contractual circumstances and/or technical capabilities, topics included in the project kickoff meeting may vary and will be tailored accordingly with all involved stakeholders.
Implementation Activities
Following the project kickoff meeting, HealthInfoNet will collaborate with participants and their vendors and partners to establish secure connectivity and other relevant entry points to enable participants' access to the Clinical Portal. Common areas explored during implementation include:
Secure Connection Options
VPN Connections
2FA Connections
User Account Creation
Secure Connection Options
HealthInfoNet currently supports secure access to its Clinical Portal via site-to-site virtual private network (VPN) or two-factor authentication (2FA) connection options.
VPN Connections
HealthInfoNet offers participants the option to securely access the Clinical Portal via a site-to-site VPN tunnel between their healthcare location(s) and HealthInfoNet’s secure data center. This option is preferred and recommended by HealthInfoNet as it provides the most streamlined connection experience and adds an additional layer of encryption when viewing Protected Health Information (PHI) through the Clinical Portal. In order to establish a VPN connection with HealthInfoNet, participants must:
Complete HealthInfoNet’s VPN Secure Connection Guide to initiate technical implementation of the VPN tunnel.
Make available IT resources (i.e., internal staff or technical vendors/partners) familiar with VPN connections, subnets, and network address translation (NAT) processes.
Implement a firewall solution capable of supporting a VPN connection and a NAT process.
2FA Connections
If participants are unable to support a VPN connection, HealthInfoNet also offers a 2FA option via standard HTTPS connection to securely access the Clinical Portal. This option is only available to participants that lack the necessary technical infrastructure to support a more robust VPN connection and/or if participants’ end users are distributed in locations outside of their central firewall solutions. In order to establish a 2FA connection with HealthInfoNet, participants must:
Credential each of their authorized end users with an account in the Clinical Portal.
Ensure that each of their authorized end users have installed HealthInfoNet’s 2FA solution and subsequently have generated a dedicated 2FA configuration token. Note: This may require an IT administrator to run the appropriate software.
Work with HealthInfoNet to confirm that each of their authorized end users’ dedicated 2FA configuration tokens are appropriately linked and activated with their Clinical Portal user accounts.
For detailed instructions on how authorized end users can configure the 2FA connection option, view HealthInfoNet’s 2FA Secure Connection Guide.
User Account Creation
Once participants have chosen a secure connection option for enabling their authorized end users' access to the Clinical Portal, they must designate an “Account Authorizer,” an individual(s) at their organization who is responsible for the creation and/or ongoing maintenance of Clinical Portal user accounts for their organization’s staff members. To learn more about the process involved for establishing and managing Clinical Portal user accounts, visit the Clinical Portal’s online user guide’s section on New User Request Form.
Communication Requirements
Participants that are viewing patients' electronic health records within the HIE’s Clinical Portal have a number of communication-related responsibilities that must be completed and/or considered prior to finalizing onboarding activities. Participants can learn more about their obligations and options by reviewing the section on Communicating HIE Participation to Staff & Patients.
Go-Live Acceptance
Once all required implementation activities and communication requirements have been completed, the onboarding project will be ready to be formally closed. At that time, HealthInfoNet’s Onboarding Project Manager will provide participants with a go-live acceptance form containing a high-level overview of accomplished tasks and a signature line where participants' authorized team members must attest that all activities have been fulfilled to their satisfaction and/or in accordance with the terms of the HIE’s Participant Agreement. Additionally, warm handoffs to HealthInfoNet’s Client Engagement (clientengagement@hinfonet.org) and Clinical Education (clinicaleducation@hinfonet.org) teams will be made to support participants' ongoing needs.
Next Steps
Once participants' connections to the Clinical Portal have been established, they will reconvene with HealthInfoNet’s Onboarding Project Team to review and confirm the processes, resources, and dependencies involved in connecting data interfaces with the statewide HIE. Participants can learn more about the expectations and activities in involved in connected data interfaces by reviewing the section on Connecting Data Interfaces.
Certain participants may also be eligible to obtain access to the HIE’s Health Analytics Reporting Platform (HARP). HARP contains a suite of use case-driven analytics tailored over the years in collaboration with our HIE participants to yield actionable insights into the quality, safety, and delivery of patient care and population health. Participants can learn more about the expectations and activities involved in obtaining access to the system by reviewing the section on Connecting to the Health Analytics Reporting Platform.