An 18-month strategic plan for the Maine health information exchange envisions expanding upon HealthInfoNet’s role as a de facto state data utility to support public and population health interests. Among other things, the HIE will pursue incorporating social health information received via existing clinical data sources into its existing health information services for use by public and population health stakeholders and providers.
In its annual report for 2021, HealthInfoNet noted that it tackled a number of new projects, programs, and partnerships, ranging from integrating with the statewide prescription drug monitoring program, to a connection with the State of Maine Department of Corrections. It also is collaborating with cross-sector stakeholders in the pursuit of expanding community information exchange.
The HIE now connects more than 850 provider organizations statewide, encompassing approximately 98 percent of all Maine residents.
The 18-month strategic plan, effective January 2022 through June 2023, calls for continuing to develop and enhance its relationship with the State of Maine Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). “We must continue to mature a synergetic and mutually beneficial collaboration across its agencies to establish greater coordination and communication of health information technology (HIT) activities,” the plan said. “This will foster common understanding of existing services, reinforce investment and prioritization of current projects, and support shared visions for prospective opportunities.”
HealthInfoNet says it hopes to create at least one new public/population health revenue stream. “To stay ahead of ever-evolving industry and regulatory changes, we must continue to flex our business model with potential opportunities. Important to our ongoing partnership with Maine DHHS, and role as a core data utility, will be in our ability to demonstrate our value by diversifying revenue streams with a new public and/or population health service or function.”
HealthInfoNet also will seek to create new applications, services, and intellectual property to increase its value proposition and provide additional revenue streams. “Reducing our reliance on vendor products and services is a beneficial byproduct of developing our own software and services. An area of potential growth may include the HIE’s continued efforts to develop more robust analytic and reporting capabilities for participants and partners through an expansion of our Health Analytics Reporting Platform (HARP) service,” the plan said.
The HIE also said it will continue to modernize its technical infrastructure. It is continuing to simplify and streamline processes and workflows to more tightly integrate the HIE within providers’ EHR systems in varying ways based on specific needs and use cases, and will align with emerging interoperability standards, such as the FHIR API framework, in order to more flexibly support evolving workflows, enhance patient care, and optimize future use cases.
