Methodology - Details Related to the Compilation of Survey Results

The Fourth Annual Survey of Health Information Exchange at the State, Regional, and Community Levels was launched and opened for participation on June 1, 2007. Announcement of the survey was communicated through email, listservs, and the distribution of surveys at conferences and meetings to a wide range of audiences to elicit responses from as many state, regional, and community-based initiatives focused on health information exchange as possible.

130 initiatives were included in the final report, each of which was carefully reviewed. Respondents who were not specifically associated or directly involved with one health information exchange initiative were excluded. Incomplete and duplicate responses, as well as responses from organizations outside of the U.S. were excluded. It should be noted that responses to the survey were self-reported. While responses were reviewed for reasonableness, they were not verified or certified.

The 2006 Third Annual Survey of State, Regional, and Community-Based Health Information Exchange Initiatives and Organizations garnered 165 responses in the final report. Repeated attempts were made to contact the 165 organizations who responded to the 2006 survey. Personal emails were sent to individuals who were listed as organizational contacts. If an organization did not respond, eHI sent a follow-email to the last known email address.  Phone calls were made to organizations who did not respond to email. In 2007, 115 of the 130 responses were from previous responders. 15 new initiatives also responded.

There were 50 organizations from 2006 who did not respond to the survey, despite repeated outreach. Additional follow up was conducted to determine the status of the 50 organizations. Of the 50 organizations from 2006 who did not respond in 2007:

• Direct contact was made through the phone or through personal interactions with 16 organizations. Reviewers can confirm that these 16 initiatives appear to be continuing with their HIE activities, although they did not respond to the online survey.
• 32 organizations were unresponsive to phone and email communications. However, eHI staff was able to locate websites for these organizations by performing an online google search. These 32 organizations still function in some form, but the status of their HIE activities is unknown.
• 2 organizations were unreachable, and staff was unable to find a website or information on the two organizations, and so we consider these two to be defunct.

It should be noted that the survey is not designed to be scientific but rather one of many mechanisms designed to provide a snapshot of what many health information exchange initiatives are doing, and the actions that can be taken to further advance their efforts.