A new study to be conducted by the Foundation of Research and Education (FORE) of the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) will develop best practices and successful model(s) for state-level regional health information organizations (RHIOs) in the areas of governance, structure, financing and health information exchange policies. The study is under contract to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC).

FORE will partner with the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) to convene consensus meetings and other groups that serve governments will be invited to participate so learning from this project can be conveyed across states.

“Many states are already developing strategies to advance the health IT agenda,” said Linda Kloss, MA, RHIA, AHIMA CEO. “The time is right to bring these operational state-level RHIOs together to share successful and cost effective best practices.”

Under the terms of the contract, FORE will produce public domain information on best practices for state-level RHIOs. The goal of this work is to bring state-level RHIOs together to share successful and cost effective strategies. The work under the contract is organized under four tasks:

• Research a sample of state-level RHIOs to gather information about their goals, current policies and practices, including governance, financing, technology, health information exchange policies, and short- and long-term priorities;
• Analyze findings to develop a framework for describing best practices and model(s) for state-level RHIOs;
• Host a consensus conference on best practices and state-level RHIO model(s); and
• Develop a plan to disseminate best practices, encourage adoption and coordination among state-level RHIOs, and to encourage participation in ONC/HHS strategies.

The target date for project completion is August 31, 2006.