Development of a Health Information Exchange Strategic Plan

The purpose of this lecture is to discuss the development of a strategic plan for the implementation of a local level Health Information Exchange (HIE). A case study of the Medical Trading Area (MTA) 14 region of the state of Illinois is presented. The plan can serve as a blueprint for the development of statewide health information exchanges. For the purpose of developing a statewide health information exchange, the state of Illinois was divided into 16 HIE MTAs. Each MTA covers a well-defined geographic area. MTA 14, with a population of 1.5 million people in the Southside of Chicago and South Cook Suburbs, was assigned to the Healthcare Consortium of Illinois (HCI). The Consortium is developing a model HIE that integrates behavioral health providers, social service agencies, independent pharmacies, and community-based clinicians in a grass-roots fashion in order to address health disparities and use health data to track the social determinants of health. The Integration Model promises to leverage all the beneficial outcomes of HIE by targeting them to the most underserved communities. A credible strategic plan will provide a clear roadmap to the development and implementation of the health information exchange in the state of Illinois. The integration and interoperability between the HIE of MTA 14, the State of Illinois and national HIE networks will result in the accomplishment of major public health data exchange priorities.