Impact Analysis of the Privacy and Security Solutions for Interoperable Health Information Exchange Project

Human profile with super-imposed padlock, representing privacy and security of protected health information
From June 2006, to December 2007, 33 States and one territory (Puerto Rico) participated in the Privacy and Security Solutions for Interoperable Health Information Exchange project, a collaborative initiative funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) and managed by RTI International.  Each State team analyzed variations in organization-level business practices, policies, and State laws that affect electronic health information exchange.  Together the State teams formed the Health Information Security and Privacy Collaborative (HISPC) and worked to reduce variation within each State and across the collaborative, identifying "good" practices that will permit interoperability while preserving privacy and security.

State teams engaged a broad array of stakeholders within their State to:

  1. Review organization-level business practices to assess the variation and identify good practices as well as those that will require modification to be applied sensibly to HIE.
  2. Develop consensus-based solutions to reduce variation and other barriers to interoperability.
  3. Develop detailed plans for implementing solutions.

In late 2007, RTI analyzed the impact of the HISPC on the participating States and cross-state data exchange.  Using reports submitted by the State teams, RTI determined that the HISPC influenced health IT activities in five major domains: legislation, executive orders, leadership and governance, stakeholder education and knowledge, and support for health information exchanges.  The report describes these domains and the progress reported by the States in each area.

Download the Impact Analysis Report (PDF, 678K; HTML) (Persons using assistive technology may not be able to fully access information in this report. For assistance, please contact ahrqsection508@ahrq.hhs.gov).