"On the provider side, the thing we have have to get right is we have to provide some value," said Stuewe. "The challenge you have when you're building a fledgling network is what do you do when there's only two phones … the network effect doesn't exist on a very small scale. So you have to try to focus on where there is enough value to get the organizations interested and participating."

"We were able to find that through what you might call the choke points in the referral process, which is the specialists. Specialists are a good focus of our attention and allow us to sort of identify a value lane, if you will, between primary care, through the specialist, and into the inpatient setting."

For example, the launch in Chicago will focus on several ambulatory practices, running on an array of systems, such as Chicago Lake Shore Medical Associates – Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation and Lake Shore Obstetrics & Gynecology.

"As an academic and hospital-affiliated practice, we are constantly pursuing best practices within coordinated care, so we are excited to join CommonWell's approach toward secure and patient-friendly data structures contributing to the maturity of information exchange across care settings," said Phyllis Wright, practice manager at Lake Shore Obstetrics & Gynecology, in a statement.

In North Carolina, the focus will be on exchanging data between acute care and ambulatory practices. Hugh Chatham Memorial Hospital and Hugh Chatham Family Medicine will be the participants in Elkin, while Maria Parham Medical Center and Premier Women's Health Professionals will be the participants in Henderson. In North Carolina, the launch enables the sharing of patient data across rural settings and county lines, as these patients often drive far to receive care.

"The sharing of patient data is critical to improving health care quality and patient outcomes, as well as reducing costs to patients, providers and payers," said Lee Powe, chief information officer at HCMH, in a press statement.

[See a video interview with Lee Powe interview here.]

In South Carolina, Palmetto Health, an acute care facility, and Midlands Orthopaedics and Capital City OBGYN, both ambulatory practices, will exchange patient data among themselves, all while using their own EHR systems.

Tripp Jennings, MD, system vice president, medical informatics officer at Palmetto Health, tell Healthcare IT News that suboptimal – or nonexistent – data liquidity has always beeb problem when it comes to delivering care.

As an emergency medicine physician, he speaks from experience. "Making quick decisions with incomplete information, is a reality that in some aspects will always be there," he said. "But is improving significantly. And technologies like this dramatically change the way we do emergency care, and the way we deliver care across the whole continuum."

Poor data exchange "certainly increases duplicative tests and costs," he says. "But most importantly it restricts informed decisions by providers."