Colour me cynical, but after reading this article from Gov Health IT by Nancy Ferris, covering eHI's annual survey of Health Information Exchanges, I can't help but hang my head in despair.
I quote:Although the number of HIEs reporting this year held steady at 130, the number that are actually exchanging data grew by 31 percent, from 32 to 42. Eighteen of the 130 HIEs are new to this year’s survey, indicating that interest in using health IT continues to increase, said Janet Marchibroda, chief executive officer of the eHealth Initiative.
On the surface, seems like good news, right?
But wait a minute.
One hundred and thirty HIEs?
130.
Nearly a gross.
Do we *really* need 130 HIEs to cover 50 states?
Unless I'm mistaken, we have four major credit cards, and three credit bureaus. Covering roughly the same amount of transactions for the same amount of people. In real time.
130?
Really?
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Too Many Chefs
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4 comments:
not to mention that the reality is, of those HIEs that claim to be exchanging many don't seem to be exchanging on a regular or even once daily basis. They've all achieved connectivity, but this is a technicality.
So, are you saying that if they test run once they count that as being in a state of exchanging data?
I wouldn't call it a test run, just that the option to exchange is there, but not many are exchanging for a number of reasons which could include the lack of actual data in the system to exchange,the lack of an agreed upon consent policy, staff not knowing/thinking to access information, staff not trusting the completeness of a patient's record, staff thinking it is too burdensome to log into multiple systems, etc.
HI Geoff, thanks for your note! I will gladly drop you an E-mail, if only I knew what it was... Leave an unpublished comment with your address and I'll get it from there.
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