Introduction
The road from startup to sustainability in health information exchange (HIE) is fraught with difficulties. Despite developing consensus that digital health care data is a good thing, it isn't yet a reality. As a result, the eHealth Initiative (eHI), through many discussions with HIE leaders, the eHI Annual Survey, and a three year grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), created the Value and Sustainability ModelSM (VSM) - a model for communities to build viable business plans and achieve sustainability in health information exchange.
The VSM assists you in establishing and quantifying the value of participating in exchanges and weaves those figures into a well articulated business plan with sound financial pro formas (financial projection tools). The eHI Value and Sustainability Model accommodates your community with your unique needs.
The five step VSM process:
- Assess stakeholder needs
- Define alternative pathways to success
- Evaluate pathways and quantifying business case returns for each stakeholder
- Plan best pathways and creating robust business models with sounds financial pro formas
- Execute the plan with periodic monitoring and assistance
No two communities are alike; each of the steps can be adopted in whole or in part depending on the maturity of your HIE efforts. Regardless of sequence, all activities within each step, and the associated tools, are adaptable to your community and its particular needs.
The complete Summary of the eHI Value and Sustainability ModelSM and Tool Suite is available here.
