UC Davis offers HIE buyer's guide
A number of health information exchange (HIE) interoperability and interface features that should be in place today are not, according to the University of California Davis Institute for Population Health Improvement (IPHI). The IPHI’s California Health eQuality program released a buyer’s guide to help providers determine the current capabilities of vendors’ products.
“The cost and time it takes to implement bi-directional interfaces so that EHRs of two or more healthcare professionals, organizations or providers can fully communicate is a major hurdle,” the buyer’s guide read. “Meaningful Use requirements for Stage 1 and Stage 2 require some HIE capabilities. Those requirements, however, are limited and do not cover the full range of interoperability and interface features needed for robust HIE.”
The buyer’s guide grades six EHR systems and HIE organizations operating in California according to relative cost and and six capabilities, including: admit, discharge, transfer information; laboratory and radiology results; referrals and appointments; continuity of care document; and public health reporting. The buyer’s guide does not provide composite scores or suggest a top-performing product, but instead allows users to make side-by-side comparisons across the six capabilities to determine the product that best fits their needs.
The complete report is available on the UCD Medical Center website.