Health Information Exchanges

Delivering the right information, in the right format, at the right time, about the right patient, to the right provider is a critical healthcare challenge. Whether HIE’s are “friend or foe,” the decreasing benefits of the government stimulus money and limited adoption of the electronic health record remains a challenge to the average doctor’s office. Choosing the appropriate vendor to integrate information and preparing for regional, statewide and/or national HIE’s is extraordinarily overwhelming. The future of HIE’s is further complicated if the personal health record is owned by the patient and/or how each state or region structures their exchange(s). Giving patients the promise of access and control over their medical information requires interoperability with other health
information and puts pressure on access and managing the data with appropriate privacy and security controls. HIE’s, in many cases, are being launched under time pressures by relatively inexperienced and under‐resourced groups, exposing a lot of data to misuse and/or errors. Health plans must determine if they are major players in the space or are just contributors.