New survey on the Health Information Exchange market predicts tremendous growth

The 2012 State of the Health Information Exchange Industry report released by Black Book Rankings late last week looks at the top enterprise health information exchange (HIE) firms based on responses from early adopters, users and implementing customers.

In a press release issued by Black Book Senior Partner Doug Brown says “”The current driving forces of HIE adoption are clearly apparent: accountable care implementation, meaningful use implementations, the need for care coordination, outcome based reimbursement challenges, available funding, and opportunities for regional stakeholder participation. The enterprise HIE vendor marketplace has become increasingly volatile with mergers, acquisitions, failures and exits, new start-ups, entries from traditional technology outsourcing firms, and legacy systems which are attempting to capture the escalating spend for true interoperability.”

Key findings from the Black Book report include:

• 41% of healthcare technology executives say interoperability is one of their top three priorities for 2012.
• 92% of CIOs expect it will be a top three 2013-2014 focus area for their organizations.
• 28% of respondents are cautiously increasing HIE spending before the end of 2012, but eight of 10 providers expect organizational HIE budgets to significantly increase by 2014
• 83% of hospitals and 17% of all providers either already have or plan to participate in an HIE solution
• 95% of all providers expect to be included in at least one HIE interface by July 2013
• 98% of those providers with HIE strategies in place will focus entirely on community or regional exchanges for the foreseeable future, rather than national health record exchange initiatives

The top ranked HIE vendors listed n the report include:

• Optum: Top Payer/Insurer–based HIE vendor
• Lawson, an Infor Company: Top Complex Data & IT Integrator HIE vendor
• NextGen: Top Ambulatory EHR EMR-based HIE vendor
• Harris Healthcare: Top Core HIE System vendor
• Cerner: Top Hospital Information Systems-based HIE vendor

The press release notes that these rankings are based on client experience and satisfaction from non-public, enterprise solution HIE customers.