Indiana has launched a pledge campaign geared at providing education and greater consumer (patient) access to their health information.

Indiana Health Information Technology’s (IHIT) role as the State Health Information Exchange (HIE) program includes representing all stakeholders with interests in health information exchange. Consumers are typically a stakeholder group that has been left on the outside of Health Information Exchange. By the conclusion of the State HIE Cooperative Agreement Program (March 2014), IHIT will create an environment that fosters open exchange of health data that gives direct access to the patient (consumer) that the data belongs to and/or the caregiver that has been authorized to receive the information. IHIT will work with partner organizations throughout the state to achieve this Consumer eHealth Initiative. These organizations will include governmental entities, health systems, provider groups, insurance payors, employer groups, universities, consumer groups, health information exchanges, health information technology vendors and personal health record vendors.

As part of this eHealth pledge, IHIT was invite to take part in the ONC Consumer eHealth Initiative launch on September 12th, in Washington DC. Public and private sector organizations from across the country came to give their support in educating conmsumers about health IT and providing direct access to health information. ONC has launched a website to provide more education to patient and their caregivers about Health IT (www.HealthIT.gov). The Indiana pledge can be found here. We hope more organizations will join the 22 that have pledged their support so far.

We are at a critical junction in the development of health information technology and exchange activities. Creating an environment that includes the patient (consumer) within the middle of the exchange environment will lead to improved outcomes, increased satisfaction, and improved transparency of the healthcare interaction. IHIT is excited to be a part of the Office of the National Coordinator launch of the eHealth Consumer program.