State-wide Health Information Exchange (HIE) Implementation Activities

Stay abreast of the latest status of the State Health Information Exchanges (SHIE) Program, as reported on the Office  of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology (ONC) web site. They have posted the figures on the implementation of state-wide health information exchanges (HIE) – for both directed exchange and query-based exchange. You can also find out more about HIE solutions at the upcoming "2013 Health Data Exchange & Interoperability Summit" being held October 30-31, 2013, in Washington D.C.

Stay abreast of the latest status of the State Health Information Exchanges (SHIE) Program, as reported on the Office  of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology (ONC) web site. They have posted the figures on the implementation of state-wide health information exchanges (HIE) – for both directed exchange and query-based exchange. Also,

Directed exchange: Point-to-point secure communication supported by the Direct Project specifications or other industry approaches to secure messaging.
Query-based exchange: Provide support for 'pull' transactions that allow a user to submit a request for patient information and ask the HIE entity to discover and provide any records it can find on the patient.

The State HIE Program was launched back in February 2010 and provided many grantees with funding and time to develop detailed plans for implementing state-wide HIE solutions. By 2012, all grantees in states launched their implementation activities. ONC recently released the latest figures on the implementation of the State HIE Program.

The latest figures, charts, and maps posted by ONC on the implementation of state-wide HIE solutions. The charts currently show that  44 U.S. States or Territories with directed exchange capabilities broadly available. Nineteen (19) States or Territories also have operational query-based exchange capabilities broadly available statewide through a single service or entity.

There are also three (3) interactive maps of the U.S. States and Territories that display the status and availability of directed and query-based exchange mechanisms in each state. The maps include both regional and state-level entities that facilitate exchange across unaffiliated organizations; they do not account for HIEs enabled by private entities serving their integrated.

One of the Bright Spots reported by ONC involves the Direct Project – a public/private collaboration sponsored by ONC created to rapidly develop 'open' standards, services and policies that enable secure, point-point health information exchange over the Internet. Direct offers an affordable and scalable HIE solution that is being widely used to more effectively and efficiently address a number of communication needs across the U.S. healthcare delivery system.

In addition to checking out the ONC update on the State HIE Program, you might also be interested in attending the upcoming "2013 Health Data Exchange & Interoperability Summit" being held October 30-31, 2013, in Washington D.C.

* Find out about other HIE Resources that have been posted on Open Health News (OHN).