Health Information Exchange (HIE) Workgroup

HIE Workgroup

Workgroup Purpose

The HIE Workgroup was chartered in 2022 to provide recommendations to the Health Information Technology Oversight Council (HITOC) and OHA on strategies to accelerate, support, and improve HIE across Oregon. The Workgroup provided recommendations to HITOC in 2023 and concluded its work. Recommendations intended to reflect perspectives from all interested parties and partners, specifically including those serving communities who face health inequities. The HIE Workgroup recommendations informed HITOC's Health Information Technology (IT) Strategic Plan for Oregon and other OHA efforts. See the Recommendations section for more information.

See the goals and full scope in the HIE Workgroup Charter.

For more information on HIE please see the HIE Overview

Background

Oregon has made significant strides as a state in digitizing health care information and adopting electronic health records (EHRs) to capture and share electronically health information relevant to patient care. An important downstream effort enabled by this accomplishment is the facilitation of information sharing between these EHRs and other electronic systems to ensure that the “right information is available to the right end user at the right moment"—which often occurs at the point of care.

As OHA seeks to eliminate health inequities due to structural racism and other factors, having accurate information at the point of care enables providers to give the best possible, culturally appropriate care and target interventions for Oregon's most vulnerable populations.

Significant efforts to promote HIE have already occurred in Oregon. However, there are still many urgent needs to coordinate care and connect across sectors and systems that rely in part on improved HIE statewide, including more robust clinical data exchange at the individual and population levels. Behavioral health, oral health, post-acute care, and other sites of care do not have equitable access to robust EHRs. There are gaps in data flowing between the health care system and public health, human services such as child welfare, justice/corrections systems, county efforts, and others. Addressing such gaps would be valuable to providers as they continue to drive more whole-person care strategies with the patients they serve.

Recommendations

The HIE Workgroup has been tasked by HITOC to assist them and OHA with developing strategies and recommendations to accelerate, support, and improve HIE across Oregon as part of Oregon's larger Health IT Strategic Plan. With input from HITOC the Workgroup organized these recommendations into five concept papers, each focusing on a different topic related to HIE. This Summary recaps the recommendations across all of the concept papers.

Each concept paper is available below. 

• Statewide Vision for HIE
  
• Consumers, Privacy & Security, and Data Quality
  
• Connecting the Care Team
• Demonstrating Value with Social Determinants of Health Use Cases of HIE
  
• HIE to Support Health System Transformation
  

Charter

HIE Workgroup Charter (approved April 2022)

Members

HIE Workgroup Member Roster (approved April 2022)

Meetings

• Monthly meetings began May 2022 and ran through August 2023.
  
  

Past

Meetings

Accessibility

Everyone has a right to know about and use Oregon Health Authority (OHA) programs and services. Some examples of the free help OHA can provide are:

• Sign language and spoken language interpreters
• Written materials in other languages
• Braille
• Real-time captioning (CART)
• Large print
• Audio and other formats

If you need help or have questions, please contact HITOC.INFO@odhsoha.oregon.gov or call (503) 373-7859 at least 48 hours before the meeting. OHA will make every effort to provide services for requests made closer to the meeting.