Some public health information exchanges continue to struggle with sustainability. The Communities of Illinois Health Information Exchange (CIHIE) stopped providing services in February, saying that health system members told the HIE that their investment in CIHIE was becoming “duplicative.”
Originally established in 2009 as a nonprofit collaborative and formerly called the Central Illinois Health Information Exchange, the CIHIE grew to include 73 hospitals, more than 375 primary care and specialty clinics, an emergency transport provider, as well as more than 70 long-term care facilities, home health agencies and other ancillary healthcare settings. Authorized healthcare providers had secure access to more than 5.5 million patient records in 20 counties in the Peoria, Bloomington, Champaign and Decatur areas.
The organization did not return a message seeking comment, but in an explanation on its website, CIHIE said it still believes that timely access to patient records minimizes wait time for treatment, reduces costly duplication of services and supports safer care. “However, healthcare looks different today than it did when we began in 2009. There are now viable alternatives to exchanging data that did not exist when CIHIE was formed.”
CIHIE said that in 2009, as it was conceptualized around a conference room table, even hospitals located in the same community weren’t sharing records across organizational boundaries. There were many different vendors in the market and not enough uniformity to make electronic exchange possible. Fax, mail and hand-delivery were required to get records from one place to another and many physician practices were still on paper.
CIHIE said these limiting factors are no longer true. “Federal investments in policymaking, vendor certifications and incentive funding have shifted the market. Software vendors now recognize the importance of making data more portable and less proprietary.”
As CIHIE’s participating organizations have assessed the capabilities that now exist with their own vendors, they told the HIE that their investment in CIHIE was becoming duplicative. “Our board has listened to these concerns and believes the responsible action is to cease services so that there is no longer a financial requirement being placed on organizations to support an independent exchange.” Perhaps the health system members are all using the same EHR vendor and so are sharing patient data that way.
CIHIE said it has provided participants with information about other ways to connect with healthcare exchange services, noting that there may be resources available through their own software vendor, through the state, or through national exchanges.
