Pioneering regional health network logs off for the final time

Analysts say the failed Santa Barbara, Calif., project offers valuable lessons for health-information exchanges popping up nationwide.

By Pamela Lewis Dolan, AMNews staff. April 9, 2007.

The Santa Barbara County Care Data Exchange -- often acknowledged as one of the first, if not the first, regional health information organization -- quietly shut its doors after eight years of never reaching its full potential.

While those close to the project mourn its death, others are grateful for the trailblazing efforts and think its failures have been used by other RHIOs to help them succeed.

The networks linking physician groups, hospitals and other health care entities in a geographic area are considered the underpinning for a national health network allowing easy but secure transfer of patient and health information.

Some say the way the Santa Barbara project closed -- quietly, with no official notice or media coverage -- was indicative of problems it had from the start. The project closed in January, but those outside the project didn't find out about it until more than a month later.

"Part of it [the quiet closing] stems from what I think is one of the mistakes. It's always been a hush-hush project," said Christina Thielst, a former administration and governance consultant who worked on the RHIO from late 2003 to summer 2004.

Thielst said because of its near anonymous existence, community pressure was never placed upon the local health community to fully embrace the project.

In a letter addressed to community members involved with the project, Robert Reid, MD, the former board chair of the exchange, blamed the RHIO's demise on the potential data providers' concerns over liability, and lack of funding to sustain the project.