Quote of the Day:
We are always getting ready to live, but never living.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Health Train Express has recently become acquainted with a Canadian solution to RHIOs search for the "ultimate" application for their interconnectivity needs. It bypasses the problems of "governance issues" and the thorny issues of "who owns what".
Many of these issues ignore the primacy of information transfer, efficiency, accuracy, and quality of healthcare delivery in this country. In addition to that concern, it is not necessary to re-invent a "wheel" that already exists.
What we need has been well established by many consortiums, RHIOs and health information exchanges. Do we all need all of it? The answer is profoundly "NO".
What about those providers who do not have broadband internet connectivity?
There are many pieces in the mix for a RHIO or Health Information Exchange. Some of these are already provided by proprietary systems, such as clinical laboratories, hospital portals, secure messaging systems, Hospital PAC systems,etc.
The California Regional Health Information Organization provides a well structured outline and roadmap for developing governance; and also a library, HIE toolkit of documents for RFIs, RFPs, and other essentials for vendors, hospitals, providers and IT departments.