Regional Electronic Data Exchange: What Does It Mean to You?

Mureen Allen, MBBS, MS, MA, ACP’s senior associate for Informatics and Practice Improvement, discussed what regional health information organizations (RHIOs) mean to physicians at the state and local levels and how chapters can help their members work with them. She said that RHIOs are the building blocks of a federal government initiative to develop the National Health Information Network (NHIN). RHIOs facilitate the movement of patient data electronically within a geographical region where each computer system is connected. She noted that in 2004 there were only nine fully operational RHIOs compared to 24 in 2005 funded primarily by the federal government, although alternative funding is emerging. She identified several state model RHIOs, e.g., Indiana Network for Patient Care, the first model to be developed and the Utah Health Information Network.

She said that the benefits of RHIO’s include reduction of medical errors, improvement of resource utilization, reduction in variability of access to care, the promotion of public health preparedness, and the empowerment of patients. Some of the challenges she identified were technology, standards, legal issues both at the state and federal level, and privacy and security issues.

Dr. Allen said that chapters/physicians may be asked to be more involved in the structure and development of RHIOs and noted that ACP is looking at policies and resources that affect physicians and will be making them available to physicians shortly.

View the PowerPoint Presentation.