Last summer we published another edition of our popular Health Information Exchange (HIE) Market Trends Report. Over the years, this report has for many, become the “authoritative source of information on the HIE Market.” That’s not me talking, that is exactly what we have heard from those who have purchased this report.
This, of course, makes us feel quite proud as our mission here at Chilmark Research is pretty straight-forward:
Provide research that will assist Healthcare Organizations (HCOs) in their understanding, assessment, adoption, deployment and use of IT to improve the quality of care delivered.
This is what get us up in the morning. This is what motivates us for everyone here at Chilmark wants to make a contribution to improving this crazy, at times frustrating, market sector.
With the release of the latest 2013 HIE Market Trends Report, however, I had an uneasy feeling. The vast majority of the market continued to view HIE as just that, moving basic health information from point A to point B. If anything, HIE has been further dumbed-down with the advent of Direct Secure Messaging, which is really nothing more than secure, point-to-point email – a far cry from interoperability and query-based information exchange.
Another issue was that I was not seeing much thought going into what is next for HCOs and their investments in HIE. Recent reports such as HIEs reduce ED visits is something we have been talking about for years. Seriously, is this the best we can come up with? What new capabilities will HCOs want (or be able) to enable across their HIE? What is the next level of value realization beyond basic records exchange and lab orders/referrals?
I increasingly came to the realization that the vocabulary of how we talk about HIE needed to change. Language is powerful and our current fixation on HIE and the vocabulary associated with it may be preventing this industry from looking beyond this limited construct. For the purposes of that 2013 HIE report, we used the term HIE 2.0 (did I ever mention I have never been a fan of 2.0 attached to any acronym) to signal a change.
In late fall of 2013, after some discussions with clients, consultants and HCO executives, we decided there was the need to test these ruminations. Chilmark put together a prospectus for a research project on Clinician Network Management (CNM) and found five willing sponsors for this research (CareEvolution, McKesson, Optum, Orion Health and one that prefers to remain anonymous). The research objective was to conduct primary research to determine the state of the market in moving to enable CNM, which goes under many guises including physician alignment, clinically integrated networks, etc. but none of these terms have quite the scope that we envisioned for CNM.
Some of the results of our CNM research are quite telling.
- The market is roiling under massive structural changes.
- Most HCOs are ill-prepared for the move to from fee-for-service to value-based reimbursement (VBR), though all see it coming.
- Those select HCOs who are now preparing for VBR are looking to be quite prescriptive in their requirements of affiliated and owned physicians – that will be supported via a CNM model.
- There remains a divide (level of distrust) between payers and providers that will take time to mend despite the need for both to work more closely together.
- HIT vendors are, by and large, not keeping up with the needs of HCOs to support CNM initiatives.
- A best-of-breed approach is seen as only path forward today to enable CNM.
Of course, we learned far more than the above which you’ll find in the report itself. Since this report was sponsored with the intent of helping to educate the market, it is being offered for free – just complete the form below to access it:
Interesting – but your article’s closing “grab a copy” link? – page not found –
:< sad face!
Bummer Charles. We just moved to a new website design so still working out some of the kinks. Will have someone get right on it.