Chuck Christian, VP of Technology & Engagement, Indiana HIE, Chapter 1

If you really want to get Chuck Christian’s goat, ask him why all banks are connected through ATMs, and yet healthcare still struggles with interoperability. The simple answer? It took quite a bit of time for banks to figure out a system. Oh, and accessing data is slightly more complex than withdrawing $10. In the latest of our Fireside Chat series, Christian talks about the progress Indiana Health Information Exchange has made in facilitating data exchange among organizations, why it’s not a lack of standards, but rather the lack of a single standard, that is hurting the industry, and what healthcare can learn from industries like banking and railroads. He also discusses the need to use data to help and not hinder clinicians, and why he strongly disagrees with reports suggesting that HIEs have maxed out.

Chapter 1



* SHIEC’s growing network

* Patient-centered data homes

* Sending & receiving ADTs through the Heartland Pilot

* Using zip codes – “I don’t know why we didn’t stumble across it sooner. It’s so simple.”

* Eyeing clinical summaries

* Interoperability’s critics: “I don’t believe a lot of what I read.”

* Multiple standards: “Pick one.”



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Bold Statements

We’re using the standard transaction sets and the backbone of the eHealth Exchange to do all this. It’s the same thing most HIEs in the country are hooked to already.

The idea of the patient being in control of their healthcare still a valid idea, and this does not replace any of those; it’s just in addition to what’s already there. But I will tell you, we’re querying other exchanges to say, do you have data? And it’s been very interesting to see how many of those patients actually have care outside of their normal region.

If you’re talking about whether we’re sending transactions all over the US on a regular basis, the answer is no. We’re doing it as needed basis.

We’re trying to stitch together a quilt of HIEs so we can exchange data and cover as much as the country as we possibly we can. And that’s why you’re going to have other options, like using the direct model to bundle up a CCD or some other document, and send it through a secure email type of infrastructure. If that’s all you got, it’s a whole lot better than nothing.

We as an industry need to come together and agree these are the standards we’re going to use; that there are going to be some winners, and some losers. Let’s concentrate on those and enhance those to take care of the use cases rather than having standard sets compete with each other.

Gamble:  Hi Chuck, thanks as always for taking some time to speak with us.

Christian:  Glad to do it.

Gamble:  It’s been a little while since we spoke, and obviously quite a lot has been going on with Indiana HIE. Let’s start with a piece that recently ran about IHIE connecting with other major HIEs. Can you talk about that?

Christian:  We’ve been collaborating with the other HIEs around us, and have been for quite some time. The Michiana HIE, which is right around South Bend, and the Health Collaborative, which HealthBridge is part of in Cincinnati — we’re moving data back and forth through both of those every day. We’re also working with SHIEC, which is a trade association for HIEs in the country. SHIEC stands for the Strategic Health Information Exchange Collaborative, and it’s about 52 or 53 sustainable HIEs throughout the country — and growing every day, and we work together on common things. Even though we’re not all alike, there are similar things we need to address, and so we work together.

We have this thing called a patient-centered data home that allows the data to move wherever the patient goes. In May, we have the Indianapolis 500 here,