The Regenstrief Institute in Indianapolis, which developed the data exchange technology being used by the Indiana Health Information Exchange (IHIE), has licensed its Indiana Network for Patient Care (INPC) and DOCS4DOCS clinical results delivery software to market HIE services outside of Indiana.
This licensing agreement represents the single most significant transfer of discovery out of an academic medical informatics research setting to a commercial enterprise in the history of Indiana’s health information technology sector and the national evolution of health information exchange, according to Regenstrief.
The INPC is among the largest and longest-running health information exchanges in the United States. Since 2004, IHIE has been responsible for increasing the number of Indiana hospitals (currently 94) and physicians (currently more than 25,000 in 17 states) using the INPC and DOCS4DOCS while creating a sustainable business model, operating independent of grant funding. Created by Regenstrief Institute’s Center for Biomedical Informatics, the INPC handles, on an average day, more than half a million secure transactions of clinically important data—including medical histories, laboratory test results, medication records, treatment reports—in a standardized, electronic format.
“Improving health care outcomes and efficiency is our mission, and Regenstrief has a 40-year legacy of developing innovative solutions to accomplish that mission,” Regenstrief investigator Shaun Grannis, M.D., associate professor of family medicine at Indiana University School of Medicine, said in a statement. “We want to continue our focus on ground-breaking innovation in the rapidly evolving field of informatics research and development. We are licensing INPC software to IHIE, a commercial entity with whom we have closely partnered since its inception. With exclusive use of the INPC software, IHIE will be well-equipped to leverage their efforts and expand beyond Indiana. With growth comes opportunity for even greater and more impactful innovations.”
IHIE’s nonprofit charter supports in-state efforts. To fully realize the potential of the INPC and DOCS4DOCS software platforms, IHIE has formed a for-profit subsidiary company to expand the use of the technology beyond state borders. Regenstrief will continue to conduct research using data from Indiana sources. The subsidiary may be able to use discoveries resulting from this research for commercial application purposes, creating a cycle of discovery, innovation and growth.
