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Find a complete list of operating regional health information organizations and RHIO initiatives, as well as other agencies related to regional health information organizations here.

See what's new with established RHIOs such as the Maine Health Information Network Technology (MHINT) and the Indiana Health Information Exchange. Learn about newly formed organizations such as the Wisconsin Health Information Exchange and Tennessee's Volunteer eHealth Initiative, both of which span multiple statewide counties. Look up public and private agencies that fund and work with regional health information organizations.

William Yasnoff, MD, PhD, the former senior advisor for National Health Information Infrastructure at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has launched a new blog. You can read it here.

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Perspective: A Patient-centric RHIO model promises to overcome barriers

Channel: RHIOs

Source: Patty Enrado, NHINWatch

Date: October 5, 2005

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Regional health information network initiatives face three significant barriers: lack of funding, low electronic health record (EHR) adoption by physician offices and patient distrust over how their data will be used and stored. William Yasnoff, M.D., and managing partner of NHII Advisors, has developed a promising regional health information organization (RHIO) model that addresses these barriers and offers numerous benefits.

Yasnoff presented his new patient-centric, sustainable RHIO model, called eHealthTrust, at a Scottsdale Institute-sponsored Webinar on October 3, 2005. Basically, the model consists of a secure central community repository of medical record information. Patients have their own eHealthTrust accounts that they pay for and control. Operations and EHR incentives to physicians would be funded by an estimated annual per-patient fee of between $50 and $100 a year that would be paid by patients, payers or employers. Yasnoff calculated that the $2 to $4 payment for submitting an electronic record for each patient encounter from a physician EHR would create approximately $10,000-$20,000 in revenue.

Other benefits of eHealthTrust include rapid response time to requests for information and no complex interfaces to other communities or eHealthTrusts, which would reduce complicated interoperability issues. While this model currently addresses outpatient EHRs and not hospitals, Yasnoff said he would like to see a complete health record of relevant data for each patient in the community.

RHIOs and health information infrastructures (HIIs) need buy-in, particularly with patients, who are typically not represented in HIIs. Will patients pay to get an electronic health record? Yes, says Yasnoff, citing a March 2005 Accenture survey , in which 52 percent of survey respondents said they are willing to pay at least $5 per month to have their medical records stored in an electronic format. “This survey indicates strong consumer interest,” he said.

Yasnoff is currently in discussion with several communities to develop pilot programs. RHIOs establishing this type of business and operational model will be closely watched in the industry. Does this model sound too good to be true? To the skeptics, yes, but eHealthTrust has a lot of credibility behind it: With his years of experience with the NHII, Yasnoff has the expertise to build the better mousetrap.