Sep 20
2019
Changing Priorities of Next Generation HIEs
By Dr. Chris Hobson, chief medical officer, Orion Health.
For nearly a decade, Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) have been looking for their long-term sustainable business model. This is part of the journey toward the future state of the HIE, which will be a ubiquitous healthcare utility that makes data available to all stakeholders across the healthcare landscape. Today, their work and future plans are driven by a desire to support value-based care initiatives, enhance interoperability, and leverage and manage a wider scope of data.
Representing a broad swath of HIEs, a 2019 Survey on HIE Technology Priorities uncovered various key trends and changing priorities in the sector. To become a sustainable healthcare information provider, HIEs must understand and leverage data to gain insights that improve patient outcomes while containing costs. Additionally, other trends include joining national exchanges, introducing value-added capabilities, enhancing integration of clinical and claims data, and growing payer participation in HIEs.
Participation in various national initiatives is an important driver for HIEs as it requires successful HIEs be more active across traditional geographic and state boundaries. Mechanisms for participation include the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA), the national eHealth exchange, Direct Trust and Carequality. Participation in Patient Centered Data Home, an event notification service that includes HIEs across the U.S. led by the Strategic Health Information Exchange Consortium (SHIEC), had the highest level of interest across all surveyed HIEs.
Like a utility, the next generation HIE must fit into the growing “Network of Networks” ecosystem, providing shared services to multiple HIEs (e.g. EMPI/record locator, patient directory, provider directory, data aggregation). This also means bringing together disparate entities into a local HIE network connecting a variety of different end-points – including practices, hospitals, systems, labs, long-term care facilities and more – while simultaneously making the local information shareable with other regional and national HIE networks. HIEs will need to support population-based use-cases and assist safety-net providers and small, independent providers to access larger interoperability initiatives across the U.S., such as TEFCA and the e-Health Exchange.