A public-private consortium is about to make a quantum leap in the interoperability among disparate electronic health record (EHR) systems and health information exchanges (HIEs). If the initiative is successful, it will drastically cut the expense of interfaces and would allow more than half of the U.S population and their healthcare providers to access health data shared among multiple states and systems.
Healtheway, the new private-sector entity that operates the eHealth Exchange (successor to the Nationwide Health Information Network or NwHIN Exchange), has partnered with the EHR/HIE Interoperability Work Group to implement standards that will make it easier to exchange health information. The Interoperability Work Group (IWG), led by the New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeHC), is a consortium of 15 states, 19 EHR vendors, and 18 HIE vendors that has been developing implementation guides for interoperability since February 2011.
(Source: InformationWeek)