Chuck Christian, VP of Technology & Engagement, Indiana HIE, Chapter 2

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

Chapter 2



* Discrediting the banking comparison – “Healthcare is far more complex.”

* Turning mistakes into experience

* Data sharing through SHIEC

* Community hospitals & the HIE value proposition

* Physicians’ plea: “Don’t tell me what I know; tell me what I don’t know.”

* Google searches with INPC

* “We’re dealing with human beings.”



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Bold Statements

Healthcare is far more complex than trying to get out $10 or $20 out of your bank account, and so it depends — are you looking for a report? Are you looking for a lab value? Are you looking for a referral document? There’s so much, much more.

Do we have all the answers? Absolutely not. Can we learn from the other exchanges in the country? You bet, and that’s the one of the reasons that we were one of the founding members of SHIEC.

They’d say, ‘you’re giving me a bushel basket of data and you’re asking me to wade through it to find something that may or may not be important, and it’s just not worth my time to do that. There are other ways I can get the same information but make it a better use of the physician’s time.’ And I absolutely agree.

There are ways we can use the data to better inform and assist the physician, and not replace their knowledge, but add to their knowledge based upon what their habits are. Two physicians may have two entirely different approaches, and that’s fine. We don’t need to fence them in and say, ‘doc, you have to do it this way.’

We have to be careful because we’re actually dealing with human beings. We don’t have the privilege of going out and experimenting on will this work, did that work.

Christian:  A lot of people talk about interoperability and say, it’s just like ATMs. Let’s look at the history of ATMs for a second. They’ve been around for a long time. There used to be hundreds of ATM networks that didn’t talk to each other. You could only get money out from your own bank’s ATM.

Eventually, the banking industry figured out that from a customer service standpoint, this is what people wanted. They also figured out a way of funding it with inter-bank transfers of funds like ATM fees, and figuring out the technology and the standards to make those networks talk to each other. I think there are still 20-plus ATM networks, but you and I don’t know it as an individual going to a bank, other than the fact is if it’s not your bank’s ATM, there’s going to be a $3.50 transaction fee.

The other thing is healthcare is far more complex than trying to get out $10 or $20 out of your bank account, and so it depends — are you looking for a report? Are you looking for a lab value? Are you looking for a referral document? There’s so much, much more.