Health Information Exchange

HIM Principles in Health Information Exchange

HIM Principles in Health Information Exchange (Practice Brief)

Emerging health information exchange initiatives must focus on more than their IT model. They must make important early

decisions on HIM issues that hard-wire data quality, privacy, and security into the network, ensuring that the ultimate goals of

improved patient safety and quality of care are met.

The value of electronic healthcare data exchange was demonstrated in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when healthcare

organizations throughout the region and nationwide shared patient data to aid in the care of residents displaced by the storm.

The Department of Veterans Affairs found that more than 2,300 users exchanged electronic healthcare data across 48 states in the

month following the disaster. Laboratory data represented just 2 percent of all data requests. Text-based reports including

demographics, discharge diagnoses, immunizations, and health summaries were the most commonly requested reports.

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Technology is a critical tool in achieving the benefits of health information exchange (HIE). However, technology alone is not

sufficient. Healthcare industry stakeholders that base their HIE solutions solely on technology do so at the expense of underlyi

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HIM principles. An abundance of disparate HIE principles, models, definitions, products, and standards camouflages some crucial

policy and process decisions an HIE initiative must make in the early stages of its development.

Transmitting patient data electronically without attending to the business processes surrounding data capture, translation, and

transmission has the potential to increase patient risks and healthcare costs. Data accessibility, reliability, and accuracy are

critical

factors in obtaining the trust of stakeholders, including consumers, and in sustaining long-term data exchange on a large scale.

Accordingly, it is imperative for regional health information...