Local Health Information Exchanges may be the key to NHIN
Physicians appear to be more interested in local, rather than state or regional, health information exchanges, believing that close-to-home networks are better equipped to meet their needs, according to a survey of exchanges in the U.S.
The 2012 Report on Health Information Exchange by the eHealth Initiative shows that...
Of the 161 HIEs surveyed, 39 were statewide exchanges or state-designated entities, and 28 identified themselves as health care delivery organizations. The eHealth Initiative said the actual number of local exchanges run by health care systems probably is much higher, because many do not call themselves health information exchange organizations.
Local HIEs are able to get up and running much more quickly than statewide organizations. Because they are locally run, organizations with whom a practice most commonly needs to exchange data — their local hospitals, referring physicians and labs — probably are on the same network.
Achieving the vision of a National Health Information Network (NHIN) for the U.S. continues to unfold. Once there was agreement on a national plan and standards, it only seemed logical that the NHIN 'network of networks' would start to emerge starting with local HIE solutions that would then evolve into statewide HIEs, and ultimately into a nationwide HIE. By 2020, we should finally achieve the vision of building the National Health Information Network (NHIN) for the U.S. - Peter Groen, Senior Editor, OHNews
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