Discussion on the experience gained during the procurement, implementation, and deployment of the Health Information Exchange (HIE) solution for the state of Florida, including policy, consent, technical implementation and sustainability considerations.

This year, at its annual conference, the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) includes a day-long symposium on health information exchange (HIE) entitled, HIE: The Year of Implementation, Collaboration & Beyond, a title that echoes the declaration Farzad Mostashari, MD, national coordinator for Health IT, made recently: 2012 is the year that health IT truly comes of age.

The increasing utilization of EHRs and health information exchange (HIE) that has been spurred by an unprecedented level of government funding for health IT could represent an untapped market for both job creation and market savings, according to the eHealth Initiative (eHI).

Although most of Californias community pharmacies are able to receive electronic prescriptions, only 25 percent of the states physicians are currently electronically prescribing medications and just 16 percent of the states total prescriptions are routed electronically, according to Cal eConnect.

While recognizing that statewide health information exchanges (HIEs) have made overall progress in several areas, Brookings Institution researchers used interviews, case studies and documentary research to determine that the true power of HIEs will not be unleashed until challenges surrounding governance, financing and policy visions are addressed and overcome.

BOSTONIncreased adoption of health IT products is resulting in an abundance of healthcare data and patient information that could help to transform the healthcare industry, but providers are still unsure of what exactly theyre supposed to do with it. A panel of representatives from health IT vendors spoke at the 2012 Harvard Business School Healthcare Conference to talk about what theyre doing and what else needs to be done.

An article published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association on Jan. 21, questioned whether the federal governments shift away from regional health information organizations (RHIOs) in favor of information exchange is best for the Nationwide Health Information Network (NwHIN).

A total of 385 breaches of protected health information (PHI) affecting over 19 million records have been reported since the August 2009 interim final breach notification regulation was issued as a part of the HITECH Act.