Health Information Exchanges: More Innovation Needed

Ken Terry | InformationWeek Healthcare | August 2, 2013


HIEs have been slow to develop offerings that organizations can use to improve care coordination, says report.

Health information exchanges (HIEs) are starting to expand their offerings to include analytic and care coordination functions that will be required for population health management, according to a new report from Chilmark Research. But market demand for these capabilities is growing faster than the HIEs' ability to innovate and overcome technical obstacles, the report said.

The focus of most HIEs, for example, is still on secure clinical messaging, which is inadequate for cross-enterprise care coordination. Queries of databases for patient information needed at the point of care account for only 2% to 10% of HIE transactions, the researchers estimated.