Kansas Health Institute News Service Alert, 06 August 2012

KHI News Service Alert

Regulators of health information exchange to consider ceding authority to state

Plan would shift cost of regulation to taxpayers and end public-private network oversight The board responsible for overseeing the digital exchange of Kansans' health records is scheduled Wednesday to face its biggest decision since it was formed two years ago -- whether to dissolve itself and turn its regulatory authority over to a state agency with the goal of saving money. The decision comes at the same time that health information exchange is beginning in Kansas. Since 2005, various Kansas groups have wrangled with how best to ensure the privacy and security of patient health information as doctors and hospitals transition from paper to electronic health records. The efforts in Kansas and around the nation picked up speed with the passage of a federal law in 2010 that laid out the national goal of having every American's medical records available digitally by 2014. In Kansas, policymakers and medical groups decided that privately owned networks would handle the transfer of digital records over a health information exchange, or HIE. In 2010, then governor Mark Parkinson created the quasi-public Kansas Health Information Exchange, Inc. The organization was charged with representing the interests of patients, health care providers, employers and insurers in an open process independent of political influence. But agreement on how to fund the exchange's operations remains up in the air. Doctor and hospital groups resisted usage fees to cover the organization's projected $400,000 annual operating cost.  Continue reading...   →  Related story: The cost of independent regulation of health information exchange