Money Dries Up For HIEs, RECs

Although about 90 percent of New Hampshire's providers are using EHRs, "the use of that EHR and the amounts of structured data elements that are accurately being recorded is still a little bit disparate across the state," Loughlin said.

Bridging that gap with a statewide network is the NH HIE, which has signed up 60 organizations on multi-year contracts. "Right now for the bulk of the organizations, we're supporting the transfer of care summary exchange, the CCD, for meaningful use and using the Direct standards, but using them to support the exchange of HL7 information like laboratory and radiology results," Loughlin explained, estimating that about a third of the state's providers are connected and that another third are in the process of joining.

Indeed, the focus of New Hampshire's HIE and REC are expanding beyond just meaningful use into the medical home initiative, alternative quality care contracts with payers and also the ACO community...