eHealth Exchange Awards $550K for Health IT Innovation, Data Exchange

The eHealth Exchange, a health information exchange, has announced the launch of a competitive grant program to encourage health IT innovation by offering up to $550,000 to organizations pursuing creative approaches that lead to advanced data exchange.  

“With all great technological advances – from the early days of the internet to self-driving cars – early progress is marked by slow, incremental change,” Jay Nakashima, eHealth Exchange executive director, said in a public statement.“But then a tipping point is reached, and significant innovations happen on what seems like a daily basis.”

 “Health data sharing is now at this critical moment, and the eHealth Exchange wants to play an instrumental role in driving toward the health IT future we’ve talked about and worked toward for more than a decade,” Nakashima added.

Proposed projects should encourage data exchange by leveraging HL7 Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) or other eHealth Exchange technical specifications.

The HIE requires that all proposals provide specific details regarding implementation, testing, and production.

Awardees of the eHealth Exchange Innovation Grant program must produce an implementation guide for the project that will benefit members of eHealth Exchange, the HIE pointed out.

The grant program is open to eHealth Exchange participants and any eHealth Exchange eligible applicants. Organizations may team up on a project.

The eHealth Exchange expects to give as many as three awards, with each totaling up to $100,000 per awardee in the form of a milestone-driven grant for one year.

The eHealth Exchange network is one of the largest HIEs in the nation, used in over 75 percent of all US hospitals, 70,000 medical groups, 60 regional or state HIEs, and five federal agencies, including Veterans Affairs (VA) and Department of Defense (DoD).

eHealth Exchange users reported high customer satisfaction across multiple areas, including patient data exchange and interoperability, according to a 2021 KLAS First Look report.

Sixty-seven percent of respondents reported being highly satisfied with the HIE overall, and 28 percent said they were satisfied. Only 5 percent of eHealth Exchange customers reported dissatisfaction with the HIE.

More than 60 percent of respondents said eHealth Exchange is easy to scale, with only 7 percent stating it was not scalable. A little over 30 percent of customers reported it was scalable with effort.

The respondents reported several strengths, but most agreed that interoperability, especially with SSA and VA connections was extremely beneficial.

A few respondents reported a lack of consistent support and platform navigation, but all respondents said they would purchase the product again in the future.