Progress on e-health exchange efforts

Initiatives continue to advance but face significant challenges to become self-sufficient.

By Tyler Chin, AMNews staff. Sept. 19, 2005.

Emerging efforts to build electronic health information exchanges around the country have made significant strides over the past year toward becoming "fully operational" but still must address major hurdles to ensure long-term survival, according to a recent report by the eHealth Initiative.

In a survey of health information exchange collaborators, the Washington, D.C.-based public-private collaborative asked HIE organizers to self-report their progress against a criteria composed of six stages of development. Sixty-five or 60% of the 109 respondents in 45 states and the District of Columbia reported that they are in advanced stages of development. Of those, 40 reported that they are in the implementation phase and 25 are or expect to be "fully operational" within six months, up from nine in 2004.

As defined by the eHealth Initiative, "fully operational" exchanges are those in which disparate health care organizations are transmitting at least one clinical transaction among themselves.

"I'd say there's been substantial progress" based on the fact that exchanges that are in the implementation or operational phases had to overcome social and cultural barriers to reach those stages, said J. Marc Overhage, MD, CEO of Indiana Health Information Exchange, a nonprofit exchange in Indianapolis. These types of barriers are the toughest to get past, because it requires competing organizations to cooperate with each other, Dr. Overhage added.