As pubic health information exchanges seek to move from their initial grant funding to sustainable business models, a group of approximately 20 HIEs has formed a consortium to share best practices.
Representatives from HIEs across the country have come together to form a national consortium called the Strategic Health Information Exchange Collaborative. SHIEC’s members will share ideas about business improvements and work together on public education and advocacy.
The HIEs have been meeting informally for years via annual conferences and monthly conference calls to discuss value-added offerings HIEs could bring their participants. Now the group has developed a formal organization with by-laws and an elected board of directors. An executive director will be named in early 2015.
The chair of this newly formed group, Dick Thompson, executive director of the Quality Health Network in Colorado, said that the formation of a national HIE consortium is evidence of the growth and maturity of HIEs nationally.
Thompson added that a national consortium could provide member HIEs valuable services such as “increasing awareness of HIEs among public and private entities, providing opportunities for the establishment of joint ventures and collaborating to inform legislators and policy makers of the benefits to the communities served by our members.”
“In addition, we would like a trade organization that speaks for HIEs exclusively and is focused solely on helping HIEs fulfill their community mission,” Thompson said in a prepared statement.
