Maryland's statewide HIE launches

[Greenbeard]

The Baltimore Business Journal reported yesterday that Maryland's health information exchange (not to be confused with the health insurance exchange, which is completely different and several years away). This isn't the first statewide HIE in the country--Delaware set up its Delaware Health Information Network a few years ago--but it's one of the first, if the not the very first, to launch in the wake of the HITECH Act. As mentioned a bit in this thread, every state right now is working to build a statewide HIE infrastructure. Kudos to Maryland on this step.

Maryland’s new health information exchange is officially up and running.

The first medical facilities to come online are in Montgomery County.

The exchange is expected to include all Maryland hospitals by 2012, and 48 Maryland hospitals have already committed to participating in the exchange.

The Chesapeake Regional Information System for our Patients (CRISP) developed the exchange, which links hospitals across the state and enables medical recording sharing. Physician practices, hospitals, clinics, labs, radiology centers, and other health care institutions will be able to share information quickly via a computer system.

CRISP has won millions in federal grants for the project and $10 million from hospital rate payments as initial funding.

The exchange is an effort by the state to help health care providers adopt electronic health records and keep health care costs down by eliminating paper records.

Organizations now participating in the exchange include:

• Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring
• Suburban Hospital in Bethesda
• Montgomery General Hospital in Olney
• Quest Diagnostics
• Laboratory Corp. of America (LabCorp)
• American Radiology Services
• Community Radiology and Advanced Radiology

Several more health care providers will connect in the next few weeks.