Health IT, Startups

New for-profit company to sell software that powers Indiana’s health info exchange

The Indiana Health Information Exchange is spinning off a for-profit company to support its own […]

The Indiana Health Information Exchange is spinning off a for-profit company to support its own efforts and bring the benefits of health information exchanges to other states and communities.

The Regenstrief Institute Inc., is licensing its technology that runs the Indiana Network for Patient Care and DOCS4DOCS clinical results delivery software to the new organization. The spin off is so new that it doesn’t have a name yet.

Jim Hill, chief revenue officer for IHIE, said that the new company will hire some new hires and take some staff members from IHIE.
To find new customers for the software that manages information and access to it, the new company help health systems build both public and private HIEs. Hill said potential clients include three types of organizations:

  • Health systems using or moving to the ACO model
  • Fast growing health systems that want a private exchange
  • Long-term care organizations that need to manage transitions of care

“With payment reform on its way, people are more inclined to figure out how to bring data together,” Hill said.

Indiana is ahead of the game with many aspects of its exchange. Emergency room doctors can get access to a state resident’s medical records if she or he is admitted to the hospital while away from home. Some nursing homes and EMS crews in Indianapolis are using the exchange and one lab is too. The INCP also communicates with smaller information exchanges in the state and the one used by metro Cincinnati health system.

Currently 94 hospitals and 25,000 doctors in 17 states use the Indiana information exchange, which includes the Indiana Network for Patient Care and DOCS4DOCS.

The systems were created by the Regenstrief Institute’s Center for Biomedical Informatics and launched in 2004. According to IHIE, the INPC handles more than half a million secure transactions of clinically important data on an average day, including medical histories, laboratory test results, medication records, treatment reports in a standardized, electronic format.

Hill expects a strong selling point for the new company to be the team’s successes and failures from running the IHIE for the last seven years, including bringing many groups to the negotiating table and getting them to agree how to set up data sharing.

“HIEs are not about technology but governance of the data,” Hill said.

There is a professional services group already within IHIE. The for-profit organization will offer both software and consulting.

“We haven’t closed any deals yet, but adjacent markets are of great interest, Chicago, Louisville, and southern Michigan,” Hill said. “Now that we have this agreement behind us, we can make promises within the marketplace.”

Veronica Combs

Veronica is an independent journalist and communications strategist. For more than 10 years, she has covered health and healthcare with a focus on innovation and patient engagement. Most recently she managed strategic partnerships and communications for AIR Louisville, a digital health project focused on asthma. The team recruited 7 employer partners, enrolled 1,100 participants and collected more than 250,000 data points about rescue inhaler use. Veronica has worked for startups for almost 20 years doing everything from launching blogs, newsletters and patient communities to recruiting speakers, moderating panel conversations and developing new products. You can reach her on Twitter @vmcombs.

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