States launch health information networks

Health Management Technology, Feb, 2005

Massachusetts and Delaware are two states that have climbed aboard the collaboration wagon, taking steps to make electronic health records (EHRs) a universal reality. In Massachusetts, 34 organizations known as the Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative, which includes many of the state's major delivery systems and insurers, have pledged to build a statewide health information network. The entity will promote widespread implementation of clinical information systems, including EHRs, clinical decision support and data exchange applications. The eHealth Collaborative emanated from a 2004 Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts pledge of up to $50 million for an effort to bring uniform EHR technology to every hospital and healthcare system in the state.

On a smaller scale, federal funding to the tune of $700,000 is earmarked for the Delaware Health Information Network (DHIN), in which key hospitals, doctors, laboratories and other medical providers throughout Delaware will help the State transition to an EHR system.