eHealth Exchange, the non-profit health information network that connects providers and federal agencies, announced its new Innovation Grant program on Monday.

WHY IT MATTERS
The program could disburse as much as $550,000 in grants and incentives to help catalyze new and innovative ways to boost electronic health information exchange or build new technical connectivity tools.

"Over the past decade, we’ve implemented the infrastructure for secure electronic health information exchange and achieved an impressive level of comfort and expectation for certain types of exchange," said eHealth Exchange Executive Director Jay Nakashima in a statement announcing the new funding.

"It’s time to build on this base of connectivity and get to the next level of data sharing as quickly as possible," he said. "We can’t wait to see the explosion of ways in which health data will be used for everything ranging from patient-focused mobile health apps to improved clinical decision support."

The eHealth Exchange Innovation Grant is open to eHealth Exchange participants and any eHealth Exchange-eligible applicants. Organizations also may team for a multi-organizational application.

Potential applicants are encouraged to visit the eHealth Exchange website to learn more. Those who do apply are encouraged to submit proposals that might increase exchange by leveraging HL7's FHIR or other eHealth Exchange technical specifications.

All proposals should provide implementation, testing, and production details. Grant awardees will be responsible for producing an implementation guide for the project that will benefit the broader community of eHealth Exchange and its participants.

The eHealth Exchange Innovation Grant is open to eHealth Exchange participants and any eHealth Exchange-eligible applicants. Organizations also may team for a multi-organizational application.

As three awards – each valued as much as $100,000, for one-year, milestone-driven grants – could eventually be made.

THE LARGER TREND
At HIMSS22 this past week, National Coordinator for Health IT Micky Tripathi lauded the progress made so far by eHealth Exchange and nationwide networks like it.

"We've got networks: Carequality, CommonWell, eHealth Exchange, or a number of state and regional HIEs that are up and running to provide these kinds of network services, which are primarily organization to organization, with high volume and high reliability."

Now, more advancements need to be made, using the "utterly powerful" FHIR spec and open APIs – offering many big opportunities for app developers and other innovators.

ON THE RECORD
"With all great technological advances – from the early days of the internet to self-driving cars – early progress is marked by slow, incremental change," said Nakashima. "But then a tipping point is reached, and significant innovations happen on what seems like a daily basis.

"Health data sharing is now at this critical moment," he added, "and the eHealth Exchange wants to play an instrumental role in driving toward the health IT future we’ve talked about and worked toward for more than a decade."

Twitter: @MikeMiliardHITN
Email the writer: mike.miliard@himssmedia.com
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS publication.