Home > Our Approach to HIEs and RHIOs

• Use communities and regions as the building blocks for Health Information Organizations (HIEs). SFT believes that it is at the community level where data is most intensively exchanged, where passionate leadership is mobilized, and where the benefits for an all electronic community are most intimately seen. We know the process for creating a successful community or region-wide health information organization (RHIO). SFT has worked with multiple communities to determine and plan their unique approaches to establishing health information exchanges.

• Build the HIE to its natural region. SFT recognizes that HIEs will naturally grow within the medical referral region as more and more providers discover the benefits of exchanging data with each other in the normal course of business. Where do referrals come from? Where do they go? This is critical information for understand the growth potential of an HIE.

• Work with community and region-wide health information organizations to develop viable links to systems emerging at the state and national levels. As state initiatives and federal interoperability standards (common messaging, format and content standards) emerge, community and regional health information organizations need to be prepared to put the standards in place to assure seamless transfer of information. SFT understands that communities and regions are part of a larger network that is being built over the next decade. SFT stays abreast of state and federal trends and standards.

• Develop sustainable business models. Developing a sustainable business model for an HIE is both an art and a science. It requires that a community or region understands stakeholders short and long-term benefits and costs from an HIE including return on investment (ROI), stakeholder ability to pay for services, user adoption rates, start-up costs, and willingness of data providers and data users to pay for services. With this knowledge, many HIEs are able to develop a sustainable business models with the help of start-up funding. SFT has tools to perform these analyses at the community and regional levels and for each stakeholder group.

• Use insights from other communities. SFT knows from experience the following factors are critical in the successful launching of an HIE:

  • Empower local, passionate leadership.
  • Promote a vision that excites people.
  • Actively engage the physician community.
  • Find the benefits for all of the stakeholders.
  • Acknowledge and address stakeholder need for ROI.
  • Think out of a vision, but implement incrementally.
  • Provide functionality that will assure success.
  • Drive for critical mass.
  • Proactively address consumer concerns.