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Understanding the health care delivery and HIE landscape within a community is the first step for a prospective HIE. Completing literature reviews, researching the web, and identifying possible participants and stakeholders followed by surveys and interviews with stakeholders will enable an assessment of the current status of health information technology (HIT), HIE, and the level of provider, laboratory, hospital, public health, and other organizational readiness to participate.
The expected results of the environmental scan should include:
- Identification of available financial resources, whether through federal, state or local government programs, or private sector resources
- Identification of the HIT and HIE needs and priorities of the local stakeholders
- Broadband availability throughout the community
- Awareness of and interest in providers receiving Medicare/Medicaid incentive payments
- Activities of the other federally supported HIT and HIE activities within the area that the HIE could leverage, including, but not limited to: Regional Extension Center Program, community college training or workforce development programs, Telehealth, presence of Community Health Center, Department of Defence, Veterans Affairs, or Indian Health HIT.
eHealth Initiative (eHI) has identified and collected information on 234 active HIEs in the country. Of the 234 known initiatives, 199 groups responded to and qualified for inclusion in the eHI 2010 Annual Survey on HIE. As a result, the survey is a source of aggregated information on HIEs nationwide and offers insights on several questions that an HIE would ask in an environmental scan:
- Purpose of their HIE initiative
- Sources of start-up funding and ongoing revenues, and financial relationship with HIE participants
- A ranking of the challenges faced by HIEs
- Insight into provider and consumer engagement with HIEs
- Functionalities offered and data exchanged by HIEs
Helpful Documents
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