Health Information Exchange (HIE)
Health Information Exchange is the electronic sharing of clinical information across organizational boundaries — between hospitals, physician offices, labs, pharmacies, and payers — enabling care coordination and reducing duplicative testing for patients seen across multiple settings.
What is Health Information Exchange?
HIE operates through three exchange models: directed exchange (point-to-point data sharing, like Direct messaging), query-based exchange (a pull model where providers query a network for a patient's records from other organizations), and consumer-mediated exchange (where the patient controls access to their own records). Major national HIE networks include CommonWell Health Alliance, Carequality (managed by the Sequoia Project), and eHealth Exchange, alongside state-level Health Information Organizations (HIOs). The Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA), launched by ONC in 2023, establishes the governance framework for nationwide HIE through Qualified Health Information Networks (QHINs). Admission, Discharge, Transfer (ADT) notification feeds are among the most clinically impactful HIE applications — real-time alerts when attributed patients are admitted to or discharged from other facilities are essential for care transition management. Sending and receiving electronic care summaries also constitutes a MIPS Promoting Interoperability (PI) measure, creating a compliance dimension to HIE participation.
Why It Matters for Healthcare Analytics
For ACOs and value-based care programs, real-time ADT alerts allow care managers to intervene at transitions — reducing preventable readmissions and unnecessary ED visits. For MIPS participants, electronic exchange measures contribute to the PI category score. For all providers, access to outside records at the point of care reduces duplicative testing and medication errors from incomplete histories.
How Vizier Tracks Health Information Exchange
Upload your ADT feed data and care summary exchange logs, then ask "How many attributed patients were admitted elsewhere last month without a follow-up touchpoint?" — Vizier identifies care transition gaps from ADT notifications and calculates MIPS PI exchange measure compliance rates.