According to a research report from Cambridge, Mass.-based Chilmark Research rapid growth and evolution will continue to define the nascent health information exchange (HIE) market, even though federal funds earmarked for them have begun to run dry this year. The report, 2012 HIE Market Report: Analysis and Trends, says the market is making a significant shift to serving healthcare organizations (HCOs) of all sizes – an enterprise market.

The first driver of HIEs is the need to meet proposed meaningful use Stage 2 requirements, which places emphasis on information exchange. The other driver is the significant changes taking place in reimbursement models that will lead HCOs to adopt HIE technology to better support care coordination across the communities they serve.

"As federal incentives drive the adoption of electronic health record (EHR) technology in the U.S., we will quickly move into the post-EHR era where the value of patient data is not what is locked in an EHR data silo, but the cumulative patient data that resides in the community HIE network," states John Moore, founder and managing partner of Chilmark Research.

More vendors than ever are trying to make a mark in the HIE market, the report says.  Since last year’s report, a third of vendors Chilmark profiled in the report have been acquired, merged, or exited the market altogether. Yet even with this, this year's report has even more vendors profiled, all looking to capitalize on the strong double-digit growth this sub-sector of the healthcare IT market has experienced in recent years and will likely continue.

"Last year, we commented on an increasingly crowded and competitive market," says Moore. "Today's market is more competitive than ever, but just as immature as it was last year."