We formed a workgroup of the leaders of six Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) – Central California, Central Texas, Michigan, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and Western New York. We are assessing the feasibility of a federated network of HIEs for supporting data-driven population health research and interventions. The workgroup has had 10+ meetings to accomplish the following:
1. Define and describe the main technologies, tools, and technical expertise required to establish a national, cross-state HIE network to improve population-based research.
2. Define and describe the main legal and regulatory components required to build an effective, efficient, adaptive, transparent, and secure federated HIE network.
3. Define and plan a pilot testing the operationalization of a federated HIE data utility hub. The panel will describe the benefits of such a system, barriers to implementation, our use of synthetic data, FHIR and non-FHIR ETL, workgroup principles, scalability, sustainability, and next steps for future research.
2. Illustrate a unique approach to large-scale data sharing between HIEs
3. Describe lessons learned and best practices for connecting HIEs of different sizes and technical capabilities
4. Describe lessons learned about the legal and relationship aspects of HIE data sharing
5. Discuss the financial opportunity of working with academic research institutions and public health agencies – the value HIEs can provide academic institutions and vice versa