Southeast Regional HIT-HIE Collaboration Final Report
The HITECH Act outlined mandates and provided funding for a multitude of developing programs and initiatives all to increase the awareness and adoption of electronic health records. Among these programs are the State Health Information Exchange Cooperative Agreement Program and the State Health Policy Consortium (SHPC). The Cooperative Agreement Programs granted millions to aid States in establishing health information exchange (HIE) organizations and networks to connect their communities of providers and hospitals. The SHPC creates support for multi-state initiatives dealing with interstate health information exchange.
In November of 2010 the Southeast Regional HIT-HIE Collaboration (SERCH) project on Health Information Exchange in Disaster Preparedness and Response began to focus on the necessity and challenge of providing access to clinical information during a disaster. The State members of the Collaborative are no strangers to natural disasters in the last decade and include the Gulf States of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. The goal was to develop a strategic plan for exchanging health information during and post disaster.
In July the SERCH released their final report, ONC State Health Policy Consortium Project: Health Information Exchange in Disaster Preparedness and Response. The report includes:
- an actionable plan for incorporating HIE into disaster planning
- addresses key topic areas of legal, technical, and governance issues
- a list of steps that States can take to align their HIE planning activities with ongoing emergency preparedness
The report concludes with five recommendations: