A two-year-old initiative to digitize health records statewide is set to launch a pilot program early next year if it can secure necessary financing.
Launched in January 2006, eHealthConnecticut seeks to implement a statewide health information exchange to streamline health care communication and cut down on duplicative services. The initiative is backed by a 25-person board consisting of consumers, medical providers, hospitals, health plans and employers.
At this point, program director Scott Cleary said proper funding is the only thing lacking. State grants from the Department of Public Health have pitched in $300,000 for eHealthConnecticut, and private donations have exceeded that amount slightly since 2006.
“This is going to cost millions of dollars over its lifetime,” Cleary said. “It’s a journey. We’ve got to start slow and create something people want to plug into.”
Funding Struggles
Funding has been an obstacle for similar programs across the country.
Securing upfront funding was a problem for 79 percent of 130 community-based initiatives in 48 states, according to a September survey. The survey reported that 48 percent of operational initiatives received upfront funding from hospitals and the federal government, 33 percent from state government, 26 percent from private payers and 24 percent from philanthropic sources.
Compared to other states, Connecticut lags in funding a health care exchange, said Laura Kolkman, chair of the Health Information Exchange Steering Committee for the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society.
Kolkman noted that states such as New York and Arizona have invested millions of grant dollars to create regional health information exchanges. Connecticut, considering its size, would probably benefit from having a single statewide exchange, she added.
“Starting up these HIEs is a multi-million dollar endeavor,” said Kolkman, also president of Florida-based Mosaica Partners. “It’s resource intensive. It requires solid up-front planning.”
Ellen Andrews, executive director of the CT Health Policy Project, a health care consumer advocacy group, said open communication among competing groups has been the most important aspect of getting eHealthConnecticut off the ground.
“It’s a miraculous thing having hospitals and insurers all around the same table,” said Andrews. “I was worried about privacy issues and consumers getting the shaft, but as soon as it got going, there was a complete understanding this has to work for consumers.”
Cleary said a pilot program is likely only a few months away. Although a detailed plan for a pilot program was developed last month, the entire board has yet not had a chance to review and approve it. The ideal pilot program would target a specific community over an 18-month period, during which hard data could be collected to evaluate its effectiveness.
Cutting Duplication
“If we had a geographic concentration of patients and providers, that’s where we’d get the idea of a real value of an information exchange,” Cleary said.
As care givers are connected to a health information exchange, Cleary said, they will have a better understanding of patient history. That, in turn, will reduce the number of duplicate tests and the possibility for error, he added.
The theory is there, though the empirical data is not. Until the initative has solid data, Cleary acknowledges it may be difficult to convince everyone involved in the process — patients, doctors, hospitals and insurance companies — to buy into eHealthConnecticut.
“We want to get our own info with our own patients and our own physicians so we can say this works and we need it,” he said.
A federal pilot program launched in Waterbury in 2003 provides some insight into how a statewide exchange might work. Data is still being collected on the effectiveness of the Waterbury Health Access Program, which connected two hospitals and three outpatient centers.
But program coordinator Leslie Swiderski said the intended effect was obvious. “We found there was duplication of services everywhere,” she said. “We were then able to keep better track of the population and cut down on visits.”
