Best Advice to New HIE: Clearly identify what problems you are trying to solve with your efforts and engage the entire community in solving them.
Founded in 2001, the Rhode Island Quality Institute (RIQI) is a collaborative effort among health care providers, health insurers, consumers, business, academe and government. The Institute has been formed to significantly improve health care quality, safety and value in Rhode Island.
RIQI has identified three areas of focus to advance the mission: (1) safety in care delivery; (2) information technology infrastructure; and (3) evidence-based medicine.
The Institute chose statewide electronic prescribing as its first initiative. In 2002, RIQI partnered with SureScripts, Inc.; a collaborative effort of independent and chain pharmacies across the nation to implement state-wide electronic connectivity between all retain pharmacies and all prescribers in the state.
Rhode Island served as SureScript's national beta test site for true electronic prescribing. The successful beta test completed in August 2003 saw 40 prescribers link to 70 percent of Rhode Island's pharmacies and transmit more than 20,000 prescriptions over the system. Beta testers reported that the system cut the time it took to deal with renewals by well over one-half. Coastal Medical, one of the beta test sites, has now implemented the SureScripts system throughout all Coastal offices. Lifespan Corporation, Rhode Island's largest integrated health care system is also in the process of bringing the electronic prescribing to its network for more than 800 physicians. When the Lifespan rollout is complete, Rhode Island will have electronically linked approximately 45 percent of its active prescribers with 85 percent of RI pharmacies. An impact study that systematically measures the outcomes of the SureScripts electronic prescribing system is in process.
RIQI also serves as the governing body for the Rhode Island Department of AHRQ contract: State and Regional Demonstrations in Health Information Technology (HIT). The goal of the AHRQ HIT initiative is to create, implement and evaluate a Master Patient Index as the backbone of an interconnected information system putting the right information at the right time into the hands of clinicians and their patients. Deliverables include: (1) identifying core data sharing partners and core data elements; (2) sharing 100 percent of these data elements and data exchange beyond the core data set by the end of year four; and (3) demonstrating measurable improvements as a result of the data exchange and interoperability. In addition to providing governance, RIQI's role in this five-year, $5 million initiative is to administer the Steering Committee, to assure strong alignment between this initiative and other statewide HIT efforts and to plan for the sustainability of the system.
RIQI has also covened an effort among Rhode Island physicians to lower the barriers and promote adoption of electronic health records statewide. The Clinical Information Technology Leadership Committee (CITLC) makes recommendations to the RIQI Board of Directors regarding issues of EHR requirements for Rhode Island practices, possibilities for group purchasing activities and models for realigning financial incentives to encourage adoption.
This website was made possible by grant number 1D1BTM00095-01 from the Office for the Advancement of Telehealth, Health Resources and Services Administration, DHHS. The contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official view of HRSA/OAT.
