Project Purpose and Goals
The Wisconsin Health Information Exchange Project (WHIE) is a regional collaborative effort involving health agencies in nine counties to facilitate information access for clinicians. It will create a single easy-to-use portal for three existing networks: the EMSystem network for emergency care, the state Public Health Information Network, and the state Immunization Registry. Separately these networks are underused. Yet together, they contain the building blocks of a successful health information exchange: a patient index, standards-based data storage/transmission, security, and redundancy. The project will create a single, user-friendly system with enhanced functionality valuable to patients, clinicians, payers, and the public health community, serving emergency, public health, and routine clinical needs.
 
The separate networks’ multiple services will be accessible through WHIE using a single, secure log-on. This will provide one-stop look-up and entry of immunization, disease registry, case management,  public health surveillance, situational alerts and advice (e.g., outbreaks, heat-waves) and health-care capacity (e.g., Emergency Department receiving status, bed-counts). The initial focus is on information used by emergency and public health professionals, but a secure network and governance structure will be created for exchange of more clinical information (e.g., lab results, prescriptions) between health professionals and patients in all settings. The goal is to create a successful regional model, one that is scalable for expansion to statewide.
 
Project Participants
Participants in WHIE include: the SE Wisconsin Bioterrorism Preparedness Group, the Milwaukee Health Department, the Wisconsin Division of Public Health, the Southeast Wisconsin Regional Trauma Advisory Council, the Wisconsin Health and Hospital Association, the Medical Society of Milwaukee County, and the Greater Milwaukee Business Group on Health, Inc.
 
Contribution to the Field
Many communities across the country seek to address the needs of multiple stakeholders in health information exchange efforts. The WHIE project promises to be a valuable testbed for those attempting to leverage existing public health and clinical information delivery networks into a seamless, unified system. In addition, WHIE innovations will be useful for the rapidly growing number of communities linked by EMSystem and similar regional emergency medicine networks who are using information technology to improve health and healthcare.