HIE

Healthcare executives in California have reason to be skeptical that another new organization leading statewide health information exchange programs will make faster progress than previous iterations. But the new team, let by the highly respected Kenneth Kizer, M.D., appears to be getting off on the right foot.

Thanks to a new established public-private partnership of states, public agencies, federally-funded health information exchanges (HIEs), and health information technology companies, more than half of the U.S. population and their healthcare providers may have access to health data shared across multiple states and systems. The partnership has established a program that will certify and test EHRs and other health IT systems to transfer data within and across state boundaries.

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.

The ECRI Institute, a Plymouth Meeting, Pa.-based independent nonprofit organization which researches the best approaches to improving patient care, recently conducted a survey with s2a, a health information exchange (HIE) and interoperability consultant, and found that 46 percent of healthcare leaders have yet to assess capacity for an HIE. The findings of the study are found in a new ECRI white paper, “Crossing the Connectivity Chasm: Pinpointing Gaps in Readiness to Exchange Health Information,” to determine whether healthcare leaders are prepared to share data across a healthcare community to improve coordination and quality of care.

According to a new study from the Burlington, V.T.-based research company, Capsite, 43 percent of U.S. physician groups are planning on joining a health information exchange (HIE). The study of more than 950 physician groups on the market adoption, market share, market opportunity and vendor mind share across the U.S. physician market, also looked at the impact of the HITECH Act of 2009 had on physician groups in terms of attesting to meaningful use.