Dive Brief:
- Many technical factors go into creating a successful health information exchange, but none will work well unless the effort has the right level of skilled staffing and support, according to the American Health Information Management Association.
- According to Meryl Bloomrosen, vp of thought leadership, practice excellence and public policy at AHIMA, while governance, business models, policies, standards and technical infrastructure are critical, attention must be focused on staffing levels and skillset as well.
- Research done by AHIMA and HIMSS in 2012 found that HIEs particularly need skilled personnel to manage key functions such as the master patient index, as well as experts to supervise privacy and security of health information used by the participating organizations.
Dive Insight:
Putting together an HIE is a complicated matter, to be certain. And it makes sense that many HIE initiatives focus on governance and technology when putting together their strategy, in an effort to plan for long-term sustainability. But as AHIMA/HIMSS research notes, often too little attention is focused on the staffing of health information organizations, creating silos that undermine the broader HIE effort. To truly succeed at building an HIE, collaborative staffing efforts are crucial.