National Health IT Week – Health Information Exchanges

Deltek Analyst Kate Tussey reports.

It would be hard to write a blog series for Health IT (HIT) Week and not include today’s topic: health information exchanges (HIE). For those new to the subject, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 provided approximately $150 billion in health care spending, including $564 million under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH). One award ranging from $4 million to $40 million was given per state. The State HIE Cooperative Agreement Program funded states’ efforts to rapidly build capacity for exchanging health information across the health care system. Key to this is the continual evolution and advancement of necessary governance, policies, technical services, business operations, and financing mechanisms for HIE over each state, territory, and state-designated entity (SDE). This program builds on existing efforts to advance regional and state-level health information exchange while moving toward nationwide interoperability.

Back in October 2010, Deltek analyzed several of the state HIE planning documents and compiled a report of trends found within the states. Most SDEs planned on utilizing a hybrid method of data storage, which can be defined as some health data being centralized and some health data being stored at locations where care is provided. A hybrid HIE offers the most flexibility (of the three structure options) by allowing large institutions with complex electronic health record (HER) systems — along with individual providers with no EHR system — to receive shared services and value from the statewide HIE. SDEs seemed to have a consensus of core components of an HIE, including:

For the complete blog, go here.