The New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeC) has announced that Mana Health, a New York City-based health IT start-up, was awarded the vendor contract to build the Patient Portal for New Yorkers. The portal is a website through which New Yorkers will be able to access their healthcare records safely and securely online.

Via the portal, patients whose providers are participating in the program will soon have online access to their personal healthcare data, including lab results, lists of medications, radiology reports, and other information about procedures and medical conditions from the various providers they see. Patients will also be able to decide who can access their data such as their doctors or family members.

Mana Health was awarded the contract to build the portal by an interdisciplinary team of representatives including the New York State Department of Health, NYeC specialists, and Regional Health Information Organizations (RHIOs), who reviewed all bid submissions. Mana Health was also the winner of the Patient Portal for New Yorkers Design Challenge, held earlier this year. The Design Challenge was launched to source the most innovative and user-friendly portal designs and was voted on by the public at large.

Mana Health will work directly with NYeC to build the user interface for the portal website and its connection to the Statewide Health Information Network of New York (SHIN-NY), a secure network for sharing clinical patient data across New York State.

The Patient Portal for New Yorkers website will become available to patients beginning in early 2014 in select parts of the state. Additional capabilities are also in development and will be rolled out over time.