At least for the short term, the massive federal incentive project to encourage health IT adoption might have had the effect of slowing growth of a relatively mature health information exchange serving the Memphis, Tenn., area.
Mark Frisse, who lead development of the state's MidSouth eHealth Alliance, said that while hospitals and clinics in the HIE are exchanging health information, uncertainty among providers about complying with the federal programs may have held up expansion of the service.
"It's kind of stalled," said Frisse, who directs Regional Informatics Programs at the Vanderbilt Center for Better Health. "Everybody is trying to figure out what meaningful use is, and what the state plan is going to be,' for funding related to the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act [HITECH] of 2009.
The Tennessee project was one of six state exchange efforts funded with $5 million, five-year grants from the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality in 2004-5. Frisse spoke about it at the AHRQ Annual Conference on Monday.
He emphasized, however, that the Tennessee project might be something of a special case in that it, "peaked early" by getting basic exchange operating quickly, whereas some of the other projects are continuing to grow. He also added that in 10 years the situation may look very different.
According to a recent AHRQ summary on the status of the six projects, the data services for the Tennessee effort have now been moved from the Vanderbilt Medical Center to the independent Informatics Corporation of America.
As of last March, data from 14 hospitals, 14 primary care safety net clinics and the University of Tennessee Medical Group were available to several hundred clinicians, the report said.
