Partnership for Connecting Communities

 

Overview

The eHealth Initiative Foundation's Partnership for Connecting Communities for Better Health Program with support by the Joseph H. Kanter Family Foundation, is a national multi-stakeholder initiative designed to raise national awareness of the value of and accelerate the use of electronic health information to address current U.S. health care challenges, including those related to quality, safety and efficiency.

Billions of dollars are spent each year to both measure and improve care, conduct research, monitor the effectiveness of treatments and safety of medications, track public health threats, engage consumers in their own health care and manage chronic disease. All of these processes rely to a great extent on health information, yet very few of the large scale initiatives in these areas currently leverage the use of electronic clinical health information that currently resides in physician offices, hospitals, laboratories, pharmacies and other health care-related organizations today.

With support from national leaders across every sector of health care, over the next several months, the Partnership will significantly increase understanding by public and private sector leaders--across every sector of health care, on how these current health care-related processes can be significantly improved by using electronic health information, thereby creating a set of "business cases" and a sustainable model for using health IT and health information exchange to improve health and health care in the United States.

In 2008, the Partnership for Connecting Communities Program will focus on four key "health care focus areas":

• Post market surveillance - drug safety
• Chronic care management - more effectively engaging consumers and clinicians
• Medication management
• Outcomes research and comparative effectiveness

The Partnership for Connecting Communities Program is employing a multi-pronged strategy in each of the "health care focus areas" it takes on:

1. Creating a "learning community" of national, state and local leaders interested in exploring the use of electronic health information to support the health care focus area.
2. Conducting research and identifying and highlighting "best practices"
3. Conducting research and gathering information on costs and benefits.
4. Testing and evaluating both the feasibility and value of using electronic health information for each area, working closely with both existing initiatives and a series of pilots or "learning laboratories" funded by the Partnership.
5. Compiling existing and collaboratively developing new tools and guides that can be widely shared and used to accelerate the use of electronic health information to support the health care focus area, including economic and business models, legal and data sharing agreements, organizational models, and communications guides.
6. Engaging national and local organizations across every sector of health care and within both the public and private sectors to take collective actions that will accelerate the use of electronic health information to support each health care focus area.
7. Developing policy recommendations to clear barriers to and accelerate adoption of the strategies that emerge from the Partnership.
8. Widely disseminating results using a wide range of mechanisms, including the web, targeted briefings, the national and local media through public relations activities, and publications.

One of the primary goals of eHI's Partnership for Connecting Communities Program is to be a catalyst and a key focal point for national dialogue on the benefits and value of electronic health information for various health care improvement strategies to support both policy change and related national efforts focused on health IT standards for interoperability, financing, and policies for information sharing.

To date, the federal government has invested considerably in gaining agreement on standards for interoperability. Efforts related to the prioritization, identification and adoption of health IT standards have been hampered by the lack of demand or "business case" for interoperable, standards-based health IT. The Partnership’s work is designed to help raise awareness of and realize the value of electronic health information in part, to support these, as well as other activities. All tools and guides developed by the Partnership will leverage those standards "accepted" by the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary, based on recommendations from the various standards-related bodies funded by the federal government.