In 2018 Healthcare Innovation interviewed Jean Branscum, CEO of the Montana Medical Association (MMA), about efforts to revive health information exchange capabilities in Big Sky Country. Now Gov. Steve Bullock has announced that the state has received $19 million from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to support the nascent HIE.
Several years ago, the State of Montana used HITECH Act funding to begin creating a statewide HIE called HealthShare Montana, but that effort eventually faltered. Now Gov. Bullock has signed an executive order designating Big Sky Care Connect as the statewide HIE.
In 2015 he had tasked the Governor’s Council on Health Care Innovation with looking for ways to establish a statewide HIE. After a feasibility study determined an HIE was viable, a coalition of healthcare providers and public and private health plans moved forward with forming nonprofit organization Big Sky Care Connect to develop the HIE. Big Sky Care Connect plans to start sharing data in 2020.
The funding is provided through a 90/10 federal match. CMS provided $19 million and the state’s 10 percent share is comprised of an appropriation from the 2019 legislature and private funds Big Sky Care Connect has raised. Big Sky Care Connect is working with data privacy and security experts to select a technology vendor that specializes in creating secure systems to manage healthcare data.
A group of champions met in December 2017 and went through the process of forming Big Sky Care Connect, which is a new nonprofit organization formed in 2018 to advance statewide HIE. The state Medicaid agency is part of the organization and governance.
Were there lessons learned from HealthShare Montana’s lack of sustainability? Branscum told Healthcare Innovation last year that one lesson learned is that all the key stakeholders need to be at the table. “HealthShare started with decision makers, but the most active people really didn’t decide things for their organizations,” she said. “Our governing board will be CEOs who can make decisions for their organizations. The governing board is very strong.”
