A case study in the future: Ohio and Mississippi demonstrate promise of HIEs

Deltek Analyst Stephen Moss reports.

Recently, I’ve become addicted to a TV program set in a camp of workers building the transcontinental railroad. The show highlights the stark realities of innovation and the novelty of a road linking the East and West Coasts. Hopping on a train in New York and arriving in San Francisco was unbelievable to some, but no doubt exciting for all. That same excitement should exist in the health information technology market, especially after the demonstration we saw earlier this month.

Forecasting the future of health information exchanges (HIE) has long been described as looking through a cloudy, crystal ball, but it became a bit more focused when a medical practice in northern Ohio became the first in the nation to use direct secure messaging to share medical records across state lines with its counterpart in Biloxi, MS. The Ohio physician used CliniSync, Ohio’s HIE, to exchange real messages with Mississippi using the standards, policies, and services of the Office of the National Coordinator’s (ONC) Direct Project. Akin to a secured email, the direct messages replace the reliance on faxes and snail mail with a more secure and timely way to exchange information. As the two practices quickly realized, clicking a few buttons beats scanning a mountain of paperwork or waiting for the postman to arrive by a long shot. The successful exchange of information between the two states sets Ohio on a course to statewide mass deployment of the direct application.

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