The National Governors Association has released a roadmap outlining how states can improve health information exchange between providers.
The report outlines five steps:
1. Assemble a core team. This team can develop goals and objectives for policies and strategies related to health IT, and might consist of representatives from the governor's office, attorney general's office, state health IT coordinator and public health officials.
2. Conduct legal and market analyses. On the legal side, this step might involve comparing the state's healthcare privacy laws with HIPAA restrictions; on the market side, this might include determining how many EHR vendors are in the state and creating economic incentives to encourage health information exchange.
3. Determine primary barriers. States should identify barriers to health information exchange and prioritize these challenges; common barriers include burdensome consent requirements, lack of uniform data standards and information blocking.
4. Select strategies. The report lays out potential strategies and considerations states can deploy based on the barriers addressed in the previous step; for example, a state may align state privacy laws with HIPAA, in an effort to reduce confusion and fear of liability.
5. Implement and evaluate. States should create a detailed plan regarding implementation and evaluation, which might include collecting EHR data, EHR incentive program data, surveys from providers and claims and encounter data.