Health Information Exchange (HIE)

At the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology 2012 Annual Meeting, held Dec. 12 in Washington, DC, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) told attendees that interoperability is a lynch pin for health IT advancement, and it is currently lacking.

Two months after the launch of the Massachusetts HIE, Laurance Stuntz, director of the MeHI, discusses the HIE's journey so far and the road ahead. Formerly a senior VIP at the healthcare communications company NaviNet and a partner at Computer Science Corporation, Stuntz joined MeHI in May.

Sixty-nine percent of U.S. primary care physicians reported using electronic medical records in 2012 -- up from 46 percent in 2009, according to findings from the 2012 Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy Survey. But in the U.S., just 11 percent of physicians said they had referral information available when it was needed.

Data exchange makes strides, but much work remains

The Statewide Health Information Network of New York sees itself as a "public utility" as much as an HIE. In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, as patients bounce between hospitals (and as other public utilities, such as electricity and transportation, are compromised), it has enabled critical continuity of care.

Blaming a "sluggish economy," the developers of what was envisioned as a gleaming Medical Trade Center in the midst of a growing healthcare market abandoned the project Thursday.

The added work anticipated from meaningful use requirements, the pressure to achieve data sharing and the clock ticking toward the 2014 deadline for conversion of diagnostic and medical billing codes from ICD-9 to ICD-10 code sets has driven the demand for consultants, creating what some call a boom.

The ever-increasing ability of both doctors and patients to send and receive healthcare data on the move is adding some weight to the health information exchange debate, but issues remain with security and a reluctance to share information.

Federal regulators announced in September that they have dropped plans to write formal regulations, or “rules of the road,” to control the exchange of health information within the nationwide health information network (NwHIN).

Jonathan Bush, CEO of athenahealth, opines on the state of HIEs and explains the obstacles associated with EHR usability.