Proposed Massachusetts e-health network gets $50 million boost

With the state Blues plan's financing, organizers expect to go live with the system in 2005.

By Tyler Chin, AMNews staff. Oct. 18, 2004.

BlueCross BlueShield of Massachusetts will spend up to $50 million to wire doctors and other health care personnel in three communities in the hope that its investment will spark the creation of a statewide e-health network.

The health plan is donating the money to the Massachusetts e-Health Collaborative, a nonprofit organization that was formed in September.

The organization's 28 members, representing a wide cross section of health care stakeholders in the state, have agreed to collaborate on the pilots and the creation of a statewide community health information network to lower costs and improve patient safety and care.

Members of the collaborative include the Blues plan, the Massachusetts Medical Society, the state chapter of the American College of Physicians, Tufts Health Plan, the Massachusetts Hospital Assn. and Bayside Health System.

The Massachusetts e-Health Collaborative will use the $50 million to buy and install interoperable electronic medical records software with clinical decision support in physician offices, said Carl Ascenzo, the Blues' chief information officer. The money also will pay for hardware, implementation services, system integration services, technology support and maintenance, and linkages between doctors, hospitals and other health care professionals.

The initiative is one of many around the country aiming to get doctors and hospitals to share patient information electronically through community health information networks (or CHINs), which the Bush administration views as an essential building block toward a national health information network.