Capability Model Defines What Health Data Utilities Can Do

In 2023, the Consortium for State and Regional Interoperability (CSRI) created a Maturity Model for health data utilities. Now CSRI has built on that framework by creating a Capability Model that identifies more than 160 capabilities for a clearer understanding of what an HDU can do.

HDUs are defined as nonprofit organizations with information exchange at their core and multi-stakeholder governance. Through their mission and function, they seek to meet the comprehensive health data delivery and analytics needs of a state’s public and private sectors.

Earlier this year the nonprofit New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeC), which leads health information exchange efforts across the state of New York, joined CSRI. The founding CSRI members are Contexture, CRISP, CyncHealth, Indiana Health Information Exchange, and Manifest MedEx.

In a September 2024 interview with Healthcare Innovation, Indiana Health Information Exchange President and CEO John Kansky explained CSRI’s beginnings. “CSRI was formed because there were a number of large, capable organizations that, at that time, weren’t yet calling themselves health data utilities,” he said. “If you’re a health information exchange, and you start doing more things for more segments, and you just keep growing, one day you wake up and you say, ‘Hey, I am not just an HIE anymore, am I?’ There was a recognition that those organizations, working together, with their capabilities and their scale and their people, could do things they couldn't do by themselves.”

Kansky added that the origin story was around the Office of the National Coordinator suggesting that it would be great if HIEs could do multi-state COVID dashboards during the pandemic response. “In three weeks, we put together a six-state dashboard that turned into a 22-state dashboard over time. And that was sort of the inspiration for what has become CSRI. Its vision for the United States is that every state has a capable health data utility.”

In addition to unveiling the Capability Model, CSRI announced that J. Marc Overhage, M.D., Ph.D., who led the development of the HDU Capability Model for CSRI, will become CSRI’s CEO in January.

Overhage has served as chief health information officer for organizations such as Elevance Health, Siemens Health Solutions, and Cerner as well as practiced for 20 years as a physician in a major academic medical center.

“HDU stakeholders, including patients, are all asking the same question: Can I rely on this organization to deliver the data and services I need?” said Overhage, in a statement. “This model gives a consistent, evidence-based way to answer that question. It doesn’t just say whether an organization calls itself a health data utility — it makes clear what it can actually do, at scale, for each stakeholder.”

The model was developed with input from stakeholders, HDUs, HIEs, and Civitas Networks for Health, a national collaborative comprised of member organizations working to use health information exchange, data use, and cross-sector approaches to improve health.

Users of the model could include policymakers who are considering designation and/or further development of HDUs to support health data connectivity at the state and national levels and HIE execs, who can use the HDU model as a roadmap and standard to communicate the value and alignment of their data services with stakeholder needs.

In the model, capabilities are divided up by maturity level. Examples of foundational capabilities include clinical lab and imaging connectivity. Advanced capabilities include things like providing a bulk FHIR API and Data Aggregator Validation. Aspirational capabilities include digital identity and trust services and a genomic data exchange repository. 

CSRI is inviting public comments on the HDU Capability Model until December 12, 2025. To submit input on the HDU Capability Model, send an email to: [email protected].