HHS Contracts with AHIMA, eHI and HIMSS to Develop Practices for State Health Information Exchange Organizations

Health and Human Services' Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) today announced a contract award to foster collaboration among state leaders in health information exchange (HIE) to identify and share emerging best practices. The one-year, $800,000 contract with the American Health Information Management Association's (AHIMA) Foundation of Research and Education (FORE) will start in March, 2007. The project will work to identify successful governance models that include defined operations, resources and finances to generate, support and amplify health information exchange. Shared results and recommended guidance are intended to support health information exchange across the country. Delivering guidance to state and local health information exchange efforts will help support the development of a nationwide network of networks to enable health care transformation and lower costs.