Palmetto Health uses both Cerner and Allscripts technology. When approached to take part in the CommonWell initiative, Jennings was "very enthusiastic," he said. "I had been keeping up with it through the news, but I was somewhat unaware of the true number of vendors we had in our area that could really revolutionize what we have as far as information sharing at the patients discretion.

"We had actually launched our own Cerner-based health information exchange that linked our acute care facilities with our ambulatory practices," he said. "We had done a lot of the legwork, which takes a significant amount of time. But I think the most surprising thing really was outside of the walls of Palmetto Health – the number of ambulatory centers that were on one of the other four vendors and were extremely excited about this opportunity."

The "long-term goal," says is to "reduce the silos we have, of our own healthcare data and in our community" and "enable patients that choose to opt in to be the center of their healthcare data."

Of course, privacy and security is paramount. "The biggest one is that the great thing about digital data is that it's so easy to share information," said Jennings. "The downside is it's so easy to share information. You have to make sure you do the right thing securely and have the patient make the decision."

[See also: Six HIT heavy-hitters announce interoperability organization]

The process of making this happen has been "very interesting," said Stuewe. "Working together as seven competitor partners is not to be underestimated."

But it's been worth it. "Organizations are excited about the difference that we represent," he said. "Since everybody is making their own connection to the network, it means there isn't a custodian of the data. The data is flowing more or less peer-to-peer between the organizations. Because of that, there isn't a middle man that needs to be trusted the way a state HIE has to be."

That "ubiquity" of data access is what will be most appealing as this small-scale experiment gains traction and expands.

CommonWell Health Alliance plans to show some preliminary results the service launch the 2014 HIMSS Annual Conference & Exhibition in Orlando in February. It also plans to add more providers in different cities as it moves toward nationwide interoperability.

"Everyone understands that, at scale, this is motherhood and apple pie," said Steuwe. 
"It's absolutely going to be the way it needs to be. Once everyone can expect that documents are available wherever they are, that's a huge change."