3 regional health networks to link up

Participants say the project marks the first large-scale effort to facilitate information exchange between different entities across multiple states.

By Tyler Chin, AMNews staff. June 20, 2005.

The Markle and Robert Wood Johnson foundations announced on June 1 that they will spend $1.9 million to launch an Internet-based prototype for a national health information network.

The foundations, which are seeking to accelerate the use of information technology in health care to improve quality and reduce costs, will connect three regional health information organizations, making their existing and developing networks compatible with each other.

Between this fall and the end of the year, the RHIOs -- MA-SHARE, Boston; Mendocino SHARE, Ukiah, Calif., and Indiana Health Information Exchange, Indianapolis -- will link so they may share identifiable and non-identifiable data about patients' medication, laboratory results and chronic disease. Patients, however, must give their consent before their data are shared with and viewed by outside clinicians.

"Ultimately, the patients own the record, and it is with the patients' consent that this is done," said John Halamka, MD, acting CEO of MA-SHARE and chief information officer of Boston-based CareGroup Health System, at a news conference in Washington, D.C.

Project organizers hope that their effort will serve as a national model for RHIOs, which are local, regional or statewide networks that link and enable hospitals, physicians and patients to exchange information with each other. RHIOs also are critical building blocks in President Bush's plan to implement a national health network within 10 years.

Although hospitals routinely share information within their organization or a community, the prototype networking project being managed by Connecting for Health -- a public-private collaborative of more than 100 organizations funded by the Markle and Robert Wood Johnson foundations -- marks the first large-scale effort to facilitate information exchange between different entities across multiple states, participants said.