HIE: Opting In

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In our 2010 CMIO Compensation Survey, health information exchange was rated as important to very important technology for 2010 by 90 percent of respondents. With the availability of federal stimulus funds and the call for meaningful use and exchange of information, it’s no surprise that HIE is getting a lot of attention. But getting from concept to deployment/subscription can be hard road to travel.

Many of the most nettlesome issues surrounding HIE implementation are the human kind. This is not to say the technological complications that HIE adopters face are small: Far from it, no matter what size an organization happens to be. But technological issues are often more “fixable”—they might not always be fixed quickly, but usually you know when you’ve solved a problem. Either something works or it doesn’t.

For some healthcare organizations, reconciling disparate information exchange systems and software versions pales in comparison to getting information-sharing agreements from competing hospitals. Prying sharable data out of single-system silos usually isn’t a technical problem. But if HIE technology is going to work, CMIOs have to get a handle on the human side(s) of the system as well as the equipment.

As Devore Culver, Executive Director of HealthInfoNet, Maine’s HIE in progress, put it during an interview: “When you go from an enterprise model to an integrated model, it’s been a fun,  but challenging process of getting security officers comfortable with the concept that it’s not their patient anymore.” In addition, the new requirements around breach and notification of breach present questions: “If you have an individual that has content from multiple organizations that are not aligned corporately and there’s a breach event, who notifies the patient?” Convincing patients to share their data is a separate challenge that’s no less daunting.

Trust also comes up as a topic of discussion in many of the sessions devoted to HIE development and deployment at next week’s HIMSS10 event in Atlanta. Speakers from several states, including Georgia, Indiana, Maine and elsewhere will share what they’ve learned in getting all sides to “opt in” for information exchange.

To get our daily updates of education sessions from HIMSS delivered to your inbox or mobile device, be sure you’re signed up for CMIO News at CMIO.net. Finally, although CMIO will be in Atlanta, we can’t be everywhere at once. If you see a noteworthy technology demo, an amazing display of interoperability or a great educational session at the show, please let me know about it.

 

--Mary Stevens, Editor

mstevens@trimedmedia.com