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As the NwHIN Exchange transitions from a federal program to a public/private partnership, its pace of growth is accelerating. The new organization, rebranded the eHealth Exchange, has 34 organizations in production now, with six more expected to join by the end of the year, said Mariann Yeager, interim executive director of Healtheway, the organization that is providing the infrastructure and governance to support the exchange of data that eHealth Exchange participants use to further their respective missions. “We had 10 applications last week alone,” Yeager told the Oct. 17 HIT Standards Committee meeting. “We expect to double participation in the next year.”

The Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative (MAeHC), a non-profit aimed at improving healthcare through IT, recently announced that the health information exchange (HIE) has officially launched in the state by MeHI, the Massachusetts eHealth Institute. The HIE is officially known as the Massachusetts Health Information Highway (HIway). At an event, the state’s Governor, Deval Patrick executed the first transaction transmitting his own health record between two hospitals on opposite ends of the Commonwealth. Earlier this year, Patrick announced Massachusetts got funds from CMS to build its statewide HIE.

Micky Tripathi, founding president and CEO of the Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative (MeHC), participated in a state health information exchange (HIE) panel on Oct. 3 at the Department of Defense/Veterans Affairs iEHR and HIE Summitat the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C. Senior Editor Jennifer Prestigiacomo caught up with Tripathi after the panel to get his thoughts on the struggles of statewide HIEs and what steps Massachusetts is taking to break the mold.

The Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative (MAeHC), a non-profit organization aimed at producing EHR deployment, health information exchange (HIE), and quality measure reporting, announced recently that is has been selected by the New England Healthcare Exchange Network (NEHEN), a collaborative, payer, and provider-directed solution, to serve as the management services organization for NEHEN operations, which will aim to bring forth a regional HIE. MAeHC will take charge of the organization’s executive management, business development, and operations management as NEHEN continues to align its services with state HIE efforts and evolving customer needs.

As health information technology and health information exchanges (HIEs) make progress on improving the quality of healthcare, one area that has received limited research is how HIEs can provide timely access to clinical information in response to a disaster. That's the subject of the final report, released in July, of the Southeast Regional HIT-HIE Collaboration (SERCH), which makes recommendations to improve how the nation's ability to respond to natural disasters through the use of HIEs.