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A Health Information Exchange is a technology solution that enables healthcare providers and organizations to share patient information electronically between systems that would otherwise not be connected. Electronic health information exchange (HIE) allows doctors, nurses, pharmacists, other health care providers and patients to appropriately access and securely share a patient's vital medical information electronically which improves the speed, quality, safety, and cost of patient care. To better track and securely share patients' complete medical histories, more and more health care providers are participating in health information exchange (HIE). This helps facilitate coordinated patient care, reduce duplicative treatments, and avoid costly mistakes. This practice is growing among health providers because the need for HIE is clear, and its benefits are significant.

Historically, healthcare data systems have been developed to address specific and localized needs. Administrative data were improved for rendering great health care services. Efforts to standardize health care data have been under way for decades through several standards bodies, each addressing different technologies. With Coordinated efforts of advances in hardware, software, and network technologies, interoperability has been feasible. Interoperability is the ability for healthcare technology systems and devices to exchange, interpret, and store data using common standards. Interoperability has been pushed forward by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC). In 2014, the ONC released a 10-year plan to achieve interoperability in the US by 2024. The goal is better utilization of clinical data, improved workflows, lower health costs, and improved patient wellness.

The Regional Health Information Organization (RHIO) is a group of organizations within a specific area that share healthcare-related information electronically according to accepted healthcare information technology (HIT) standards. Typically, it oversees the method of information exchange among various providers settings, payers, and government agencies. The RHIO is one model toward achieving the proposed National Health Information Network (NHIN) in the United States. A Regional Health Information Organization brings together various stakeholders in geographic areas, such as healthcare providers, hospitals, smaller clinics, and government agencies, to share health-related information electronically safely and securely for the purpose of improving healthcare. Despite immense efforts made to encourage the adoption of Health Information Exchange, there are number of factors that have impacted the adoption of Health Information Exchange Technologies at RHIO and NWHIN/NHIN levels. The variation in state privacy rules and lack of clarity about requirements

Exchanging health information with providers in other states can be difficult due to their limited understanding of variations in privacy rules from state to state. The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) is attempting to address privacy issues related to electronic health information exchange through several ongoing efforts with States and other government agencies. However, providers are still finding it difficult to ensure they are compliant with state laws when exchanging certain personal health information with providers in another state.

Cost of Health Information Exchange

Financing health information exchange can be challenging as it involves with many costs such as high cost of hiring specialists to manage purchasing and implementation of HIE. Also cost of participating in local or state HIE organization, and transaction fees for exchanging information by vendors are very high.

Insufficiency in Standards

Lack of standards in digital health information exchange can lead to some privacy concerns. Hence, information exchanged digitally must adhere to some standards in order to be used in EHRs.

Efforts to resolve the barriers to the free flow of electronic health information, while preserving privacy and security requirements, are currently under way at many different levels. One of the most ambitious and comprehensive efforts is a survey by the Health Information Security and Privacy Collaboration, whose goal is to gain national consensus on the privacy and security solutions that will facilitate interoperable health data exchange.