Our CMIO Compensation Survey 2010 showed that health information exchange technology is rated as very important by 43 percent, moderately important by 20 percent and important by 27 percent of respondents. With the availability of federal stimulus funds and the call for meaningful use and exchange of information, its no surprise that HIE is getting a lot of attention. But getting from concept to deployment/subscription can be hard road to travel.

The state of Maine currently has the largest operating statewide exchange in the country in relation to population. Although Devore Culver, Executive Director of Maines HealthInfoNet, expects that distinction to change in the months ahead, the states HIE is entering the final months of its demonstration phase, and is slated to move in to its full statewide implementation in the second half of 2010. Culver, who is former CIO of Eastern Maine Health Care, recently spoke with CMIO about the progress HealthInfoNet has made.   

Now that the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT has designated approximately $500 million for development and further integration of health information exchanges (HIE), the fieldwhich previously struggled for funding and supportis energized and expanding rapidly.

The Department of Health and Human Services has named Joy L. Pritts, a lawyer, as the first chief privacy officer at its Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC).

InSite One (Booth #7555) is highlighting its IHE standards-based vendor-neutral InDex enterprise archive service, which can share patient information in a health information exchange, at the HIMSS10 conference in early March.

Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., will receive $12 million to help healthcare providers in Indiana adopt and use health IT with the establishment of the Indiana Healthcare IT Extension Center (I-HITEC).

Diagnostic imaging and health IT solutions provider Agfa Healthcare has entered into an installation agreement with the Montpellier University Hospital System in France.

MEDecision has introduced a new health information exchange service, InFrame, that allows healthcare organizations to share clinical dataincluding diagnostic-quality medical images among themselves and with patients.