Health Information Exchange: A Strategy for Improving Access for Rural Veterans in the Maine Flex Rural Veterans Health Access Program.

摘要

This paper reports on the design and implementation of the Maine RVHAP project (MeRVHAP) which seeks to connect clinical providers in the VA Maine Healthcare System to Maine’s statewide Health Information Exchange (HIE-HealthInfoNet). The paper focuses specifically on the project’s goal of using Maine’s statewide HIE to create bi-directional VA and non-VA provider access to rural veterans’ health information, thereby improving care coordination, continuity of care, and the quality of care received by veterans. In addition to describing the design and implementation strategies, experience, and progress of the MeRVHAP, we discuss key factors that have contributed to the project’s implementation challenges and successes with the aim of extracting lessons relevant to the broader issue of enhancing healthcare access for rural veterans.