NY State Moves Forward With New HIE Participation Agreement

Last September, the New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeC) announced the development of a uniform Statewide Common Participation Agreement (SCPA) – a new, common legal framework for all healthcare entities that participate in the Statewide Health Information Network for New York (SHIN-NY).

Now the New York State Department of Health has approved the SCPA, the first step in implementing regulatory reforms to SHIN-NY since its inception in 2016. 

NYeC said the SCPA will improve the SHIN-NY’s ability to make health records available statewide, outside of regional silos, and allow every participant to choose where and how they obtain their HIE services, in addition to facilitating critical statewide services such as those supporting the Medicaid waiver program. The SCPA also ensures decisions about data use are transparently vetted and aligned with SHIN-NY privacy and security policies and procedures by a Statewide Data Use Committee comprised of SHIN-NY participants.

The new SCPA establishes a data-sharing agreement that NYeC said will modernize the health information exchange system, so that providers and public health agencies can get the authorized or permitted data they need, how and when they need it, to better care for patients – making the SHIN-NY more effective and nimble enough to respond to an increasingly dynamic healthcare landscape. 

The approved SCPA will replace the numerous, different legal agreements that have historically governed participation in the SHIN-NY through the participating organization’s regional Qualified Entity (QE) while preserving the QEs’ role with their customers.

The SHIN-NY currently connects all hospitals in New York State, is used by over 100,000 healthcare and community-based professionals, and supports the care of millions of people who live in or receive care in New York. 

Each month the SHIN-NY sends over 10 million alerts to care team members about patient emergency department or hospital visits. The SHIN-NY also shares diagnostic lab results electronically for more than 575,000 patients between providers each month. 

The adoption by the Department of the SCPA follows several months of review and feedback from the SHIN-NY Qualified Entities (QEs), members of the SHIN-NY Policy Committee and an ad hoc workgroup, and other stakeholders through a public comment period during the fall of 2024.