Health Information Exchange Development in Washington/Idaho

     Our intent is to connect public health to clinical care to enable bi-directional sharing of clinically relevant information.  The health information exchange (HIE) will provide public health with real-time access to clinical care information to improve situational awareness and case reporting. Public health will provide clinical care with population-based health information to assist clinicians in decision making. This bi-directional sharing of clinical care and population-based health information is vital for helping to identify and rapidly respond to catastrophic infectious disease outbreaks and other public health emergencies.  It will also form a foundation for routine surveillance activities.
     The backbone for this information sharing is the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN), which is envisioned as an adaptable, responsive, and resilient “network of networks” for health-related data.  The NHIN will use shared architecture and standards to connect HIEs.  The American Health Information Community (AHIC) Minimum Data Set (MDS) and associated Health Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP) biosurviellance specifications are an initial set of NHIN standards we intend to implement.  Additional NHIN standards will be implemented as they become available and are appropriate.
     To advance the science and practice of situational awareness, we will also complete an evaluation of the MDS to assess its use for responding to and managing high-risk morbidity and mortality events such as seasonal or pandemic influenza, and its adherence to the HIPAA minimum necessary requirement. Building on the MDS assessment, we will also develop and evaluate analytical tools that can help detect events as early as possible and solutions to support state and local public health agencies’ needs to detect, verify, and manage public health events.