In this episode, Brian Anderson interviews George Bosnjak, an industry guru in the world of Health IT.

George is vice president of member development for Professional Credentials Exchange (ProCredEx), a small start-up focused on improving the clinical credentialing process. There, he helps connect the healthcare community in a trusted network and create innovative tools that, together, eliminate credentialing waste.

He shares about his previous experience with Great Lakes Health Connect—now part of the Michigan Health Information Network (MiHIN)—building a network on payer reimbursement models.

George then dives into the world of HINs, sharing how hospitals are increasingly agreeing not to compete on clinical information—but rather to connect to a trusted third party. He offers real examples of the way this works, pointing to Hurricane Harvey and COVID-19. Today, almost every HER connects to some type of exchange, making the process of gathering patient information at the point of service a much more technologically smooth experience for providers.

George explains how important it is to have access to the community record in emergency scenarios like this, when people are being seen in tents or parking lots or football fields.

He also looks to the future, analyzing the fine line between the helpfulness of sharing patient data versus the importance of keeping it safe and secure.

On the positive side, he points to the ways it could make it easier to recruit patients for clinical trials.

George concludes by sharing what he’s working on at ProCredEx. He’s building the first-of-its-kind distributed ledger credentialing network, with blockchain enabled. He hopes this will help verify providers’ credentials and verifications much more quickly and efficiently—especially when they’re required to move around the country like in the current pandemic atmosphere.

We thank George for his time on the Augusto Podcast and wish him the best of luck on all his projects!