The Maryland/DC/Virginia region is quickly becoming a hotbed for health information exchange (HIE). Considering the area is the home to several government agencies (Social Security Administration, Department of Health and Human Services) that have received significant funding in the stimulus bill for health IT and considering both private and public stakeholders in the area have demonstrated broad support for health IT, it is easy to see why HIE is blossoming in the region.
In Maryland, Governor Martin O’Malley has made the establishment of a statewide, public-private HIE by 2012 one of the main goals of his administration. To demonstrate his commitment, the Governor recently signed a law requiring the Maryland Health Care Commission (MHCC) along with the Health Services Cost Review Commission (HSCRC) to designate an official statewide HIE by October of this year. MHCC and HSCRC have already made progress on this mandate; for the past year, two planning groups (
CRISP and the Montgomery County Coalition) have worked to draft
plans for HIE in the state, and the findings were used to guide a request for application (RFA) for implementation of an HIE. Responses to the RFA are due on June 12
th.
In Virginia, successful HIE
MedVirginia has teamed up with the Social Security Administration (SSA) to improve the disability claims process. For some patients in Virginia, the SSA is now able to obtain medical information electronically in order to verify diagnoses of debilitating conditions. This process greatly reduces the need for SSA staff to manually contact multiple, sometimes unresponsive providers in order to request paper copies of medical records. According to Jim Borland, special advisor for health IT at the SSA, while the average processing time for a disability case at the Virginia Disability Determination Services office is eighty-four days, obtaining information through electronic medical records reduces this time to twenty-five days on average (
nhinwatch.com). Practically, this means claimants receive decisions faster and are eligible for Medicare and Medicaid benefits sooner, thus allowing providers to get paid faster for uncompensated care. The SSA is seeking to leverage HIEs across the country to grow these benefits. Other notable HIE efforts in Virginia include the
NOVA RHIO and
CareSpark.
While most current HIE efforts are regionally based, the long-term vision for HIE is a national infrastructure of interoperable health information. Efforts such as the National Health Information Network (NHIN) are already working towards this goal. In the Maryland/DC/Virginia area, demonstrated patient crossover means there is great incentive for the HIEs in the area to eventually connect. As health IT initiatives advance, we will see the pool of associated opportunities and potential benefits continue to grow.