The Health IT Policy Committee has created a task force to pursue the use of directories across state HIEs to support provider and patient look-up as well as to enhance public health reporting.
For health information exchanges to gain a footing, experts say, states will have to make sure physicians can access provider directories. Without these electronic listings of providers and patients across a state or region, vital health records and messages might not get to its proper destination.
The task force, to operate under the committee's HIE workgroup, is slated to make recommendations in October on the best approaches, said Micky Tripathi, chairman of the HIE workgroup.
Directories already in use, which include listings of providers from immunization registries, e-prescribing networks and state medical boards, could form the basis of authoritative state or regional electronic directories of provider names and addresses, Tripathi said at an HIE workgroup meeting Aug. 26.
The directories are an important driver of statewide HIEs, which in turn supply the infrastructure for sharing patient data between individual and physicians and clinical groups, he said.
Policymakers will also take up how to make better use of directories to assist in public health communications and alerts, Tripathi said. Physicians and hospitals must report certain disease indicators to state public health organizations, another driver of state and regional HIE.
There are economic hurdles, Tripathi said. Many states are contending with shrinking budgets for public health while at the same time facing meaningful use incentive requirements that are driving demand for public health reporting, he said.
"It's a meta issue across all states," said Tripathi, who is also CEO of the Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative. "We may want to formalize some conversations around barriers and getting states to think of these."
David Lansky, co-chair of the work group and CEO of the Pacific Business Group on Health, said the panel's recommendations would send a signal to vendors to develop such capabilities that ultimately could be a common set of requirements across states.
"We would like to avoid 50 different signals," Lansky said.
