: The Health Information Technology Plan for Region V Behavioral Health Care Providers in Southeast Nebraska is a collaborative effort of health care providers located throughout southeast Nebraska that are committed to the development of a health information technology infrastructure that will result in the standards-based data sharing and lead to measurable and sustainable improvements in patient safety and quality of care in the region. Heartland Health Alliance, Blue Valley Mental Health Center, Region V Systems, BryanLGH Medical Center and Health Partners Initiative are partners in the planning project. Also, many rural hospitals and other service care providers in Region V have agreed to participate in the planning process. The total population of the Region V Systems' sixteen (16) county service area is 413,557 or 24 percent of the state's population. The service area is covers approximately 9,308 square miles. Lancaster County's population, including the city of Lincoln, is 250,291. The balance of Region V's population, 163,266, or 39 percent, resides in the remaining fifteen (15) rural counties in the project service area. The purpose of this planning effort is to develop and implement a plan for behavioral health care providers in the region to standardize core shared data elements; design an integrated management information system for the sharing of health care data and information among rural and urban health care providers; connect rural providers to urban providers; and develop messaging capabilities between primary care and behavioral health care providers. The outcome of this planning effort will be the development of broad specifications for a management information system that will meet the needs of project partners and other participating organizations and the identification of resources needed to implement and sustain the management information system.
