As executive director of the Nebraska Health Information Exchange (NeHII), Deborah Bass knows what it takes to get a health information exchange (HIE) up and running successfully.
NeHII is one of the first state-wide HIEs and one of the largest HIEs in the country, with four health systems in the pilot covering nearly two million lives. Its services include e-prescribing, clinical messaging and physician referrals.
In her Education Session 4, “The Common Myths of Health Information Exchange, ” Bass drew from her experience in developing NeHII to its current state and informed attendees what can be transferred to other HIE efforts.
NeHII’s vision is to be patient centered, driven by physician adoption, led by a quality team that takes one step at a time. Its value statement is reflective of its stakeholders.
She reminded attendees that establishing HIEs is more about change management than the technology itself. With so many challenges and barriers to face, leaders of fledgling HIEs should ask for assistance, seek multiple solutions to each challenge and blend policy and technology to fashion an answer.
The key success factors of NeHII included appointing a visionary physician leader, developing a committee structure, adopting an entrepreneurial approach, conducting a pilot study and establishing accountability for milestones, performing site visits and engaging in public/private collaboration, according to Bass.
Dealing with multiple stakeholders is a challenge in any situation, but for HIEs, which often have competitors and adversaries at the table, reaching out to all invested parties is critical. Asking for input, listening to their needs, speaking their language, communicating frequently and identifying the leaders and early adopters are ways to engage multiple stakeholders, she said.
Bass identified and busted in detail six common myths surrounding HIEs – technology readiness, struggle for sustainability, consumer fear, system performance concern, hardware and software needs and financial burdens.
“There’s a new world coming,” Bass said. In the traditional healthcare world, if the physician owned the patient’s information the physician owned the patient. With health IT, the future will bring competition based on cost, safety and quality of care, she said.
