New integration gives community health centers in New York State broader patient encounter information through a platform they already use.

SYRACUSE, N.Y., Oct. 14, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — HealtheConnections, Azara Healthcare and the Community Health Care Association of New York State (CHCANYS) today announced a new partnership that will make SHIN-NY Statewide Encounter Alerts (SEAS) available to Community Health Centers (CHCs) through the Center for Primary Care Informatics (CPCI) platform powered by Azara Healthcare.

The integration delivers statewide hospital inpatient and emergency department encounter alerts through Azara’s Transitions of Care (TOC) Module, giving CHC care teams access to information about their patients without requiring them to use a separate alerting system.

The solution is live now for CHCs that participate with HealtheConnections, with availability expanding to all CHCs using Azara’s TOC Module by the end of 2026.

Solving the Interoperability Problem

“This is exactly the kind of practical interoperability we have been working toward with the SHIN-NY,” said Mary Lantin, President & CEO of Azara Healthcare. “The promise of the SHIN-NY has always been to make important health information available where and when it can be used. Putting statewide encounter alerts directly into the population health platform that CHCs already use is a simple, efficient and useful solution for the people providing care.”

The new integration addresses a longstanding challenge for CHCs to receive encounter alerts: One statewide source instead of multiple local feeds.

Historically, a CHC could receive ADT alerts through multiple local health information exchanges, depending on where the organization was located. The new approach replaces those individual feeds with one reliable statewide feed from HealtheConnections.

CHCs can now receive information about their patients’ hospital and emergency department encounters from anywhere in New York. More than half of New York’s CHCs already use the CPCI platform, making the integration a significant step toward providing CHCs a single, more efficient way to access statewide encounter information.

By bringing statewide encounter alerts into a platform CHCs already use, the integration helps care teams identify hospital and emergency department visits more quickly, support timely follow-up and care coordination, and reduce the administrative burden of monitoring multiple alert sources.

“We saw an opportunity to make this much simpler: one statewide source, delivered through a platform many CHCs already use,” said Elizabeth Amato, HealtheConnections President and CEO. “But, interoperability does not happen just because technology exists. It happens when organizations recognize an opportunity, work together and actually build the connection and spread the word. This partnership with Azara and CHCANYS is a great example of that.”

How It Works

CHCs can access SHIN-NY Statewide Encounter Alerts through Azara’s Transitions of Care (TOC) Module, bringing statewide encounter information directly into care team workflows. Organizations already using the TOC Module will transition to the statewide SEAS feed with little to no additional work required, and Azara Healthcare and CHCANYS are available to support any CHC interested in implementing the solution. If they do not currently use CPCI or the module, Azara or CHCANYS can assist them with implementing it.

CHCANYS helped bring HealtheConnections and Azara together around the needs of New York’s community health centers. The organization has played an important role in identifying opportunities to improve how CHCs access and use health information.

“Community Health Centers need technology that works for them, not technology that creates more work,” said Rose Duhan, CHCANYS President and CEO. “Our health centers rely on timely information about their patients, which only works if delivered through practical solutions that fit into their existing workflows. This integration expands the information available to health centers while making it easier to access. That is a meaningful improvement for the people who use these systems every day.”

A More Connected SHIN-NY

HealtheConnections was selected by the New York State Department of Health to provide SHIN-NY Statewide Encounter Alerts and launched its next-generation SEAS solution in 2025. The service provides near real-time information about hospital inpatient and emergency department encounters to authorized healthcare organizations across New York. To learn more about SEAS, visit healtheconnections.org/alerts.

Connecting SEAS to Azara represents another step in the evolution of the SHIN-NY: making statewide information not only available, but easier to use.

Learn More

CHCs with questions about SHIN-NY Statewide Encounter Alerts can contact HealtheConnections as the primary point of contact for information about SEAS, including questions about the statewide feed and the transition from existing local feeds.

CHCs interested in adding Azara’s Transitions of Care Module should contact Azara Healthcare at solutions@azarahealthcare.com or CHCANYS at hccn@chcanys.org to learn more.

About HealtheConnections

Through innovative technology solutions, collaborative partnerships, and a passion for using data to improve health, HealtheConnections connects providers, hospitals, community organizations, and more to power smarter healthcare decisions for 14+ million patients.HealtheConnections delivers unique health information exchange (HIE) services to a diverse, expansive network, enabling new opportunities to share, understand, and apply clinical data for better care delivery and to support public and population health priorities. HealtheConnections is a nonprofit organization certified by the New York State Department of Health as a Qualified Entity (QE) of the Statewide Health Information Network for New York (SHIN-NY).

For more information on how HealtheConnections is delivering critical health information exchange and analytics services across New York State, visit www.healtheconnections.org. 

About Azara Healthcare 

Azara Healthcare, the four-time Best in KLAS provider of population health and value-based care solutions, helps providers and health plans unify clinical, health plan, HIE and social drivers of health data to improve quality, close care gaps, strengthen regulatory reporting and enable more effective payer-provider collaboration. Azara serves federally qualified health centers and other safety-net providers, community and critical access hospitals, physician practices and health plans across the United States. Learn more at www.azarahealthcare.com.

About Community Health Care Association of New York State (CHCANYS)

CHCANYS is the voice of New York’s 75+ Community Health Centers (CHCs), serving one in eight New Yorkers at almost 900 sites across every region of New York State, providing care to more than 2.5 million people each year. CHCANYS vision is to ensure that every New York State community has primary care that encompasses all aspects of each patient’s health and well-being, and its mission is to champion community-centered primary care in New York State through leadership, advocacy, and support of CHCs.

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SOURCE HealtheConnections