TriRivers Health Partners in conjunction with Northern Illinois University for Health has been working collaboratively with over 25 Northern Illinois healthcare stakeholders to join together and submit an application for a Health Information Exchange (HIE) grant for Medical Transport Area #9. HIE provides the capability to electronically move clinical information among disparate health information systems while maintaining the meaning of the information being exchanged. The goal of an HIE is to facilitate access to and retrieval of clinical data to provide safer, more timely, efficient, effective, equitable, patient-centered care. HIE’s are also useful to Public Health authorities to assist in the analysis of health across a population of patients and sharing information such as immunization records with participating health care providers.

HIE is the use of electronic medical records and that assists medical providers in understanding a patient's full medical history that may exist across multiple health care regions from a variety of health care providers. A HIE enables the exchange of this critical clinical and administrative data among providers and helps to:

• Improve healthcare quality and outcomes
• Reduce health disparities
• Reduce medical errors and duplicative services
• Enhance coordination of patient care among providers
• Reduce or eliminate paper
• Control the cost of healthcare