The first annual meeting of the recently formed Strategic Health Information Exchange Collaborative (SHIEC), held this past week in Deer Valley, Utah, produced several key initiatives and elected the 2015-2016 SHIEC Board of Directors. SHIEC is a national consortium and trade association of regional and community health information exchanges (HIEs) formed in late 2014.
The SHIEC Annual Meeting was scheduled to precede a joint meeting of HIE User Group (HUG), the National Association of Trusted Exchange (NATE) and SHIEC. The SHIEC meeting produced several initiatives and work groups, including an advocacy work group, a payer work group and a marketing-branding work group.
This first national meeting was very successful, according to the group’s executive director, Robert Steffel. “One very important take-away of our first meeting was a validation of the value and purpose of this national consortium and trade association,” Steffel said. “There is clearly an agenda and a direction for SHIEC.” Steffel added that several prospective SHIEC members were invited to attend, and SHIEC membership has grown as a result of the first annual meeting. SHIEC members now total 28 HIEs across the country, representing nearly 90 million covered lives.
A key point of discussion at the conference concerned the position of community and regional HIEs in the national healthcare landscape. “Healthcare is inherently local, and our HIEs are at the heart of the communities we serve,” said John Kansky, President & CEO of the Indiana Health Information Exchange and newly elected SHIEC board member. “While we are not the only source for secure information sharing, in our local communities we are the trusted data source that bridges information gaps, providing more complete patient records,” he added.
The conference also included discussion of many ways that member organizations can work together. “Many of our SHIEC member organizations hold clinical information for patients who travel between states,” said David Kendrick, MD, CEO of MyHealth Access Network of Oklahoma, also a newly elected SHIEC board member. “We see some real opportunities to improve health and reduce costs by improving the coordination of care for the patients we share,” he said.
The first national meeting began an initiative to share ideas and develop shared branding for SHIEC members. “We found a lot of common ground in the communication issues and challenges faced by SHIEC members in their markets,” said Melissa Kotrys, CEO of Arizona Health-e Connection and reelected SHIEC board member. “All of our members will benefit from coordinated marketing and branding that we can do through SHIEC,” she said.
Elected for two-year terms to the SHIEC Board of Directors were Douglas Dietzman, Executive Director of Great Lakes Health Connect (GLHC); John Kansky, President & CEO of the Indiana Health Information Exchange (IHIE); David Kendrick, MD, CEO of MyHealth Access Network; Melissa Kotrys, CEO of Arizona Health-e Connection; and Daniel Porreca, Executive Director of HEALTHeLINK.
SHIEC Board of Directors
Deb Bass
Chief Executive Officer
Nebraska Health Information Initiative (NEHI)
Melissa Kotrys
Chief Executive Officer
Arizona Health-e Connection (AzHeC)
Doug Dietzman
Executive Director
Great Lakes Health Connect (GLHC)
Daniel Porreca
Executive Director
HEALTHeLINK
Keith Hepp
Senior VP of Business Development
HealthBridge
Teresa Rivera
President
Utah Health Information Network (UHIN)
John Kansky
President & Chief Executive Officer
Indiana Health Information Exchange (IHIE)
Dick Thompson
Executive Director
Quality Health Network (QHN)
David Kendrick, MD
Chief Executive Officer
MyHealth Access Network