56. Thriving Under Pressure and Going Live as a QHIN with Paul Wilder from CommonWell and Maylee Wu from ELLKAY

Introduction:  In this episode, host Sandy Vance has two special guests: Paul Wilder from the CommonWell Alliance and Maylee Wu from ELLKAY. Paul has joined us before in an episode titled “CommonWell Health Alliance Powered by ELLKAY”. After the big announcement that CommonWell would now be powered by ELLKAY, there have been many positive changes and movements in the right direction for smooth interoperability. Paul and Maylee are here to update us on some of what’s going on behind the scenes. They also discuss individual access and why there seems to be so many differing opinions about it.  In this episode, they talk about: An update on the CommonWell / ELLKAY TEFCA journey How they were able to achieve QHIN designation in only six months What it’s like to work with CommonWell’s established services Why Paul says Individual access to health records should be as easy as getting your credit report.  A Little About Paul and Maylee: With over two decades in health IT, Paul has held various roles focusing on imaging, clinical informatics, and interoperability. As Executive Director of CommonWell Health Alliance, he runs the not-for-profit trade association that promotes interoperability nationwide. Before joining CommonWell, Paul was Vice President of Strategy & Business Development for Philips Interoperability Solutions. He also spent 10 years with one of the largest regional HIE networks in the world, the New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeC)—serving as its Chief Information Officer, Vice President of Product Management, and Program Director for NYeC’s Regional Extension Center. Prior to joining NYeC, Paul worked in health care with a focus on information technologies at McKesson, Fujifilm Medical Systems, and GE Healthcare. Paul received his MBA from New York University and holds two bachelor’s degrees from the University of Pennsylvania—in Economics and Biomedical Science. Maylee has over 10 years of experience in healthcare IT and currently leads the product team of ELLKAY's interoperability platform solution, LKOpera. Before ELLKAY, she worked at Epic as well as startups in the precision medicine, patient management, and interoperability space. She's passionate about improving and advancing healthcare interoperability and making data accessible and usable for the right people at the right time.”