Project Title: Connecting the Capital Region: DC Health Information Exchange
State or Territory: District of Columbia
Applicant Name: Department of Health Care Finance
Address: 825 North Capitol Street, NE
Contact Name: Dr. Julie Hudman
Contact Phone: 202-442-9050
Contact Fax: 202-442-6117
Email Address: julie.hudman@dc.gov
Website: www.dc.gov
Brief Status: The District is in the early stages of developing a city-wide health information exchange (HIE). We have not developed a strategic plan, but are collaborating across agencies and with private sector entities. The District is engaged in three major health information technology initiatives, the DC Regional Health Information Organization, the Children???s IQ Network, and the Medicaid Patient Data Hub pilot, part of the CMS Medicaid Transformation Grant.
Project Abstract
Connecting the Capital Region: The District of Columbia???s Health Information Exchange, is a collaboration between the Department of Health Care Finance (DHCF) and the Department of Health (DOH) to develop the District???s Health Information Exchange (HIE), leveraging the significant efforts already underway to establish a seamless District-wide integrated, scalable, and interoperable HIE. This District-wide HIE will, in turn, support providers in achieving established goals, objectives and measures related to HIE. The project rationale is that it is more cost-effective to link and build on these existing efforts that it would be to design and build a separate new District-wide HIE.
The objectives of the cooperative agreement are to: 1) identify and gain consensus on the appropriate HIE governance model for stakeholders; 2) draft and implement finance incentives to foster and sustain HIE capacity; 3) develop and approve the statewide technical architecture standards for HIE; 4) design and deploy statewide shared services and resources to support HIE expansion and interoperability, and; 5) authorize and implement the privacy and security policies and safeguards, consistent with state and federal requirements, that will allow the secure exchange of health information within the HIE.
The District anticipates the outcome to be functioning technical interfaces between public sector systems, the Medicaid Management Information System (MMIS) and private sector systems (e.g., DC Regional Health Information Organization and the Children???s IQ Network). The District hopes that these interfaces will result in an increase in the number of providers able to send and receive electronic health information over the HIE; an increase in the electronic reporting of public health, quality and outcomes indicators via the HIE; and the documentation of health care system cost savings due to better care coordination and timely clinical decision-making by providers.
The goal is to implement a District-wide HIE. The planned products from this project include: Strategic and Operational HIT plans, a defined governance structure, and policies and procedures to ensure the private and secure exchange of information within the District. Our goal is to enable the District???s clinical community to make safer and more informed decisions and improve the health of the citizens.