Three-quarters of states have begun developing some kind of health information exchange, according to a report released today by the State-Level HIE Consensus Project.
The project’s director, Lynn Dierker of the American Health Information Management Association, told a Health and Human Services Department advisory panel that the need for health care reform generally falls behind the creation of state-level HIE organizations, along with the need to keep patients' data private and secure.
Some HIEs have advanced to the point where they are nearly ready to begin exchanging data, Dierker told the American Health Information Community. "We feel like we are labs" for the exchange of patients' health data, she said.
The HIEs are public/private partnerships and seldom part of state governments, she said. They usually include stakeholders from many interest groups, and they serve the public interest, operate cost-effectively and protect the privacy of patients whose records move through the network.
Although governance responsibilities are the most common role of state-level HIEs, Dierker said, the organizations are often responsible for the technical operations, too.
A new national organization called the State-Level HIE Leadership Forum is emerging to share insights and lessons learned, she said. It will hold its first meeting next week in Dallas.
Also, state-level HIEs want to participate in AHIC’s successor organization, which is being created as a public/private partnership outside HHS, Dierker said. Synergy is needed between national and state-level health information technology programs and other health reform initiatives such as quality-of-care measurement and pay-for-performance incentives.
Among other activities in the coming year, the project will decide whether it is desirable to accredit HIEs that meet certain criteria and how to sustain organizations after a start-up period. In addition, the relationship of state-level HIEs to the planned Nationwide Health Information Network remains undefined, the report states.
Those who pay for health care should be more involved in HIE development, the report states. “At a national level, the roles for Medicaid and Medicare in helping to build and sustain HIE capacity must be clarified and strengthened,” it states. “The active engagement of health plans in strategies to support state-level HIE remains an important priority.”
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT supports the State-Level HIE Consensus Project.
Government Health IT presents Rick Friedman, director of the division of state systems for the Center for Medicaid and State Operations with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in this recent eSeminar regarding how the federal Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services is partnering with state Medicaid and health and human services officials to bring Medicaid into the digital age. Paul McCloskey, Government Health IT editor, moderates.
