You asked for information on a project in Massachusetts that is developing a coordinated electronic health records system.

PROJECT BACKGROUND

A coalition of 34 health care organizations in Massachusetts, including many of the state’s major heath care delivery systems and insurers, is working on the development of a statewide health information network. The “Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative (MaeHC), a nonprofit entity formally organized in the fall of 2004, will promote the implementation of clinical information systems including electronic medical records, clinical decision support, and data exchange applications in order to improve the safety, cost-effectiveness, and quality of care in the state.

Among the supporting organizations are Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Boston Medical Center, Health Care for All, Massachusetts Hospital Association, Massachusetts Medical Society, and Tufts Associated Health Maintenance Organization.

The first phase of the project involves demonstration pilots in three Massachusetts communities.

PILOT PROGRAMS

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts has pledged $ 50 million to support the implementation of the collaborative’s pilot phase. In December 2004, the collaborative released a request for applications for communities interested in participating in the pilot. MAeHC plans funding three separate demonstration sites, each of which will test universal adoption of electronic health records and supporting infrastructure that brings together physician office practices, health centers, hospitals, laboratories, pharmacies, and other medical entities. The pilot programs will purchase and install electronic health records systems in participants’ office settings and will provide those systems with the ability to operate with other systems to allow data exchange and use of common decision support tools. The pilots will also promote reimbursement mechanisms to encourage widespread adoption and continued use of the technology.

Communities will be chosen to participate based on a number of criteria. MAeHC is looking for communities that have a substantial portion of their heath care delivered in that community, and whose institutional providers and health care professionals are committed to adopting electronic health records, decision support tools, and community wide information exchange.

The collaborative received 53 applications for demonstration project grants and has narrowed that number down to six at this time. Shortly, three applicants will be selected from these six finalists to participate in the pilot programs. Each of the six communities that have reached the final selection phase is centered on an acute-care hospital or group of hospitals, and includes in its application many different aspects of the community’s health care delivery system, including physician practices, long-term care facilities, nursing and home health care agencies. (More information on the collaborative and these six finalists is attached. )

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