The Florida Health Information Exchange, governed by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA), has chosen nonprofit CRISP Shared Services (CSS) as its data exchange technology platform. 

Starting July 1, the new network will go live with a significant expansion of participating organizations, including a nearly 5% increase in hospital bed coverage, representing nearly 3,500 more beds, and over 200% increase in skilled nursing facilities participating with the network.

Columbia, Md.-based CSS originally spun out of the Maryland HIE CRISP. Besides the Florida HIE, CSS’ network has grown to include:

• Maryland (CRISP)
• The District of Columbia (CRISP DC)
• West Virginia (WVHIN)
• Connecticut (Connie)
• Virginia (Virginia Health Information)
• Alaska (healthEconnect)

With the CSS platform powering its capabilities, Florida HIE will:
• Waive annual fees for small to mid-size providers. With the new Florida HIE, CSS's national nonprofit model will waive all service fees for small to mid-size providers in support of a robust health information network. This new fee structure supports more predictable budgeting, sustainability for safety-net providers and community health organizations, and reduces administrative and financial barriers to participation.
• Enhance event notification delivery. CSS's real-time alerting solution will notify healthcare providers about their patients' hospital encounters by matching an organization's patient roster with admission, discharge, and transfer (ADT) data, then pushing those alerts directly into clinical workflows. In the future, the alerting solution will include data beyond ADTs, offering significant enhancements catered to unique provider and organizational needs.
• Expand and diversify data sources. CSS will help expand Florida HIE's data sources, including working to expedite integrations of more data types, such as consolidated clinical documents (CCDs) and Observation Result (Unsolicited), or ORUs, in alignment with FHIR. CSS said this expansion will significantly improve the quality and comprehensiveness beyond encounter data to include historical and expansive patient and diagnostic data such as laboratory and radiology results, clinical observations and diagnoses, medications, vitals, and information on preventive and chronic care measures, such as cancer screenings and prediabetes testing.
• Optimize the AHCA Rural Health Transformation Program. Florida HIE will serve as the technological backbone of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP) awarded to the state.

"To support modern, sophisticated care, Florida hospitals need the most complete, accurate, and powerful clinical health information," said Mary C. Mayhew, president and CEO of the Florida Hospital Association, in a statement. "We applaud the AHCA expansion of Florida HIE, which is essential to hospitals' ability to deliver coordinated and effective care to the state's growing population, including our most rural and vulnerable communities."