The Indiana Health Information Exchange, looking to generate revenue for continued sustainability, is creating a for-profit subsidiary company that will take advantage of software licensed from the Regenstrief Institute for use outside of the Hoosier State.
The new venture, announced late last week, will use software that currently runs the Indiana Network for Patient Care and DOCS4DOCS with a goal of "connecting disparate healthcare facilities to make patient information available when and where it is needed most."
"Healthcare is an information business," William Tierney, president and CEO of the Regenstrief Institute said, according to the announcement. "Improving the infrastructure within which doctors and other healthcare providers work allows Regenstrief to have a positive effect on Hoosiers' healthcare and its outcomes. This new level of partnership with IHIE and its new for-profit subsidiary allows us to impact the lives of Americans living far beyond Indiana's borders."
Jim Hill, chief revenue officer for IHIE, told MedCity News that clients of the new company likely will include health systems currently part of or set to move to an accountable care model; systems in search of a private health information exchange option; and long-term care facilities looking to boost care transition efforts.
"With payment reform on its way, people are more inclined to figure out how to bring data together," Hill said. "HIEs are not about technology, but governance of the data."
IHIE CEO Harold Apple echoed those sentiments to FierceHealthIT in an eBook published last fall.
"In order to make [IHIE] successful on a larger scale, we have to add higher-margin products, which is the analysis of the data," he said.
Added Keith Kelly, IHIE's vice president of professional services: "There must be a laser focus on the value proposition and sustainability of each service that HIEs are providing. HIEs are giving things away to create interest and excitement; the risk there is the customers are not valuing those services if they're given for free."
To learn more:
- read the IHIE announcement
- here's the MedCity News article