In 2014, we've seen astounding growth in usage of the health
information exchange (HIE). In the first week of December, accesses to our clinical portal were already up 66% over all of 2013 and this past October was the highest month for usage ever! In October, 1,317 users logged in to the HIE a combined 22,725 times, that's a 74% increase over October of last year.

October showed all time highs in automated usage as well. 10,605 care notifications were sent to our users; 342,745 messages were delivered to ACOs to support care management; and 90,327 messages were sent to the Maine CDC in support of public health activities.

The upward trend is continuing as we near the end of 2014, and demand for training is skyrocketing. Sharon Bearor, RN, our Clinical Coordinator has presented at hospitals and practices across the State to help them integrate the HIE into their workflows and educate new users. Everywhere she goes, she finds enthusiasm and excitement for our services. Thank you to our clients for making 2014 the best year yet. Here's to further increases for 2015!

Where's the Data on HIE - Our Reaction to the RAND Study

"Despite $600 Million From Stimulus, Jury Out On Health Information Exchanges" read a recent headline from Forbes. Not the kind of news a health information exchange organization like ours likes to see.

The headline refers to yet another HIE study, this one from the RAND Corporation and published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The study findings can be summarized as following: HIE use likely leads to reduced emergency room visits and related costs; the sustainability of HIE organizations is questionable; and, most notably, more research is necessary to understand how HIEs are used and their effect on patient care.

We agree. In order to quantify the value of HIEs and understand what will make them successful, we simply need more data. So if the government has spent $600 million on HIEs and, as the study authors report, there are over 100 HIE organizations across the country, why don't we have the data? Well we have some thoughts. Read more on our blog.

Maine was one of the lucky six states awarded a State Innovation Model (SIM) Testing Grant by the CMS Innovation Center. For more about the SIM, visit the State's website. HealthInfoNet is one of three partners in the grant program, working on four projects.

First, we continue to provide real time email notifications to MaineCare care managers when members they're tracking are admitted to a hospital emergency department. This process allows care managers to intervene earlier and help to automate their current manual process.

Second, we're building an analytics dashboard using HIE data and MaineCare claims data to identify high-cost, high-risk members and support population health programs such as Health Homes, Accountable Communities, and Community Care Teams.

Third, we're connecting 20 behavioral health organizations to the HIE, and expect the first organization to begin contributing data early next year. See "Getting Ready to Add Mental Health Data" below.