The New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeC), along with the New York State Department of Health, recently announced that three Regional Health Information Organizations (RHIOs) and three health information exchange (HIE) vendors will participate in the Statewide Health Information Network of New York, or “SHIN-NY.” The RHIOs are Brooklyn Health Information Exchange (BHIX), e-Health Network of Long Island, and THINC, with HealthUnity, IBM, and InterSystems representing the vendors.

All of these groups have joined forces with NYeC to facilitate HIE across New York’s downstate region—comprised of New York City’s five boroughs, Long Island, and the Hudson Valley and with a combined population of 13 million. NYeC says this represents a significant step in that it formalizes the creation of a single, unified statewide network for healthcare records. The SHIN-NY is coordinated by NYeC and will unify existing state HIE initiatives, such as within hospital systems and local RHIOs.

“A health information network is relevant to all of us,” David Whitlinger, executive director of NYeC said in a statement. “If we ever need to visit the ER, anytime we get an MRI or have lab work done and need to make sure our primary care doctor gets the results—our records must reach whoever is treating us as quickly as possible.”