Institute For The Future

Farewell to a Regional Health Information Organization

First, what is a Regional Health Information Organization (RHIO)? In very simple terms, it is an effort to allow health care organizations in a particular geographic area to electronically share patient information.

 

The Santa Barbara County Care Data Exchange, which has served its community in this capacity for the last eight years, recently shut down. In a recent press release, one of its funders, the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), called it "among the most ambitious and publicized health information exchange projects in the country."

 

So why did it fail? To answer that question, the Foundation has published a comprehensive, independent evaluation that "provides important lessons about the barriers to adoption of health data exchanges to make health information more portable." A condensed version of the report has recently been published in Health Affairs; the full report is available in PDF format at the Foundation website.

 

Although the Santa Barbara project has closed, it has, according to the CHCF, "helped to focus national attention on the value of health information exchange, which [has] led to the federal government's adoption of a plan to establish RHIOs throughout the United States."

 

Regional health data exchanges take a step further the idea of electronic health records, which individual health care providers are using with greater frequency (see July 22, 2007, entry). They "can improve the quality, clinical efficiency, and safety of health care by making patient data more readily available to hospitals, physicians, and other at the point of care." This approach to health information contrasts with discussions of personal health records, over which individuals will have control. Google Health is making a lot of noise in this arena (see below). I don't think the two are mutually exclusive; hopefully standards will be adopted that will make the sharing of health information seamless.