HIE: The Evolution of an Idea

We’ve posted twice this week on matters related to ongoing efforts to build and sustain health information exchanges (HIEs). So it seems appropriate to round off the theme with this overview piece that looks at where HIE efforts have been, what they look like, and where they might be going.

“HIE stands for Health Information Exchange,” this longtime observer begins rather simply. But the simplicity fades into the background as she lists the myriad meanings of those three words.

“Sometimes the term HIE is used to describe the act of exchanging health information, sometimes HIE is used to describe the infrastructure which enables the exchange to occur and sometimes HIE is used to describe an organization that owns the infrastructure which enables the act of health information exchange.

She then briefly describes the two primary models of HIE, one being the “centralized model”, in which the federal government would be the primary repository for health information, while the other is the “federated model”, in which health information is stored where it’s created, then moved around as needed.