In 2004, the state of Maine began work on a state health information exchange (HIE) in an effort to bring together disparate health care organizations, and meet federal calls to implement more effective real-time public health event monitoring and enable rapid response.

These included Maine’s four largest health delivery systems – Central Maine Health Care, Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems, Maine General Medical Centers, and Maine Health. Included was also an independent, mult-site primary care practice – Martin’s Point Health Care – and an independent rural hospital – Franklin Memorial Hospital in Farmington.

Together, these health care organizations totaled some 15 rural and urban hospitals and approximately 2,000 physicians, which represented almost half of the total physicians practicing in the state of Maine. Once completed, all hospitals in Maine are expected to become part of the HIE helping to deliver care to the state’s 1.3 million residents.

Additionally, the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention has linked their public, statewide health information system with the HIE in an effort to automate the reporting requirements for their laboratory as required by Maine law.

In 2006, HealthInfoNet was developed in the state of Maine as an independent, nonprofit organization tasked to create, promote, and sustain an integrated, secure and reliable regional information network. This network was developed to deliver authorized, rapid access to patient health care information across numerous points of care. This state health information exchange is thought to be the nation’s largest statewide system using clinical data.

The ultimate goal of the HIE was to enable health care organizations to:

• Enhance and improve the overall quality of clinical care

• Minimize service duplication

• Identify public health threats better

• Improve administrative and clinical efficiency

• Improve patient safety>

• Increase and expand consumers’ access to their own health care information

The HIE is a collaborative effort between organizations dedicated to improving overall health care management through innovative solutions, including:

• Orion Health – Concerto™ Portal and Rhapsody™ Integration Engine

• 3M Health Information Systems – Clinical data Repository and Enterprise Master Person Index (EMPI)

• DrFirst, Inc. – Informational processes coordination

The state health information exchange is currently in the "demonstration" phase of development and implementation, but is expected to save the state of Maine $10.6M in 2010 and nearly $20M by the time complete implementation is realized in 2011.