An Overview of the eHealth Initiative Foundation’s
Connecting Communities for Better Health Program
September 2005

What is the Connecting Communities for Better Health Program?
The Connecting Communities for Better Health Program (Program) is conducted by the eHealth Foundation. The purpose of the Program is to provide seed funding and technical support to multi-stakeholder collaboratives within communities who are using electronic health information exchange and other information technology tools to drive improvements in healthcare quality, safety and efficiency. 

What are the Goals and Objectives of the Program?
The overall goal of the Connecting Communities Program is to accelerate the mobilization of data across regions and communities (health information exchange) to support health and healthcare. The Program achieves this goal by performing the following:

1. Creating Learning Laboratories. The Program provides seed funding to communities who are engaged in health information exchange, creating “learning laboratories”.
   
2. Developing Common Principles, Policies and Strategies for Health Information Exchange. The Program works with national experts, “on-the-ground” implementers, and other key stakeholders to develop common principles, policies, strategies and guides for navigating the organizational, legal, financial, clinical and technical aspects of health information exchange.
   
3. Evaluating Progress of the Learning Laboratories, the Program and the Field in General. The Program assesses the current state of regional and community-based health information exchange efforts across the country; evaluates the progress of those to which seed funding support is provided; and assesses the effectiveness of the Program itself. As part of the Program, the eHealth Initiative Foundation is developing evaluation tools to support health information exchange initiatives in assessing their own progress and identifying areas for improvement.
   
4. Disseminating Program Outputs. The Program widely disseminates common principles, policies, and strategies for health information exchange through a number of mechanisms, including:

• National and regional learning forums; phone and web meetings; and targeted technical assistance for individual states and regions;
• The Program web site--the “Connecting Communities Learning Network and Online Resource Center”; and
• Tools and guides delivered directly to stakeholders. The eHealth Initiative Foundation is currently exploring methods to extend its reach by working with partners.
  

Who Funds the Program?
Congress has appropriated $10.8 million to the eHealth Initiative Foundation. Funds are administered through a $6.8 million cooperative agreement between HRSA/OAT and the eHealth Initiative Foundation. An additional $4 million has been appropriated to the eHealth Initiative Foundation through the Office of the Secretary for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2005—this funding will be administered by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.

What Has the Program Funded to Date?
Funds provided to the eHealth Initiative Foundation by HRSA have provided direct seed funding support to communities engaged in health information exchange, infrastructure to both select and manage those contracts with communities in compliance with federal guidelines, mechanisms for the networking and sharing of information among communities engaged in health information exchange to stimulate learning, and the development and delivery of tools, resources and guides to support stakeholders involved in health information exchange efforts. 

What are the Plans for the Program in the Future?
The eHealth Initiative Foundation on August 29, 2005 released the results of its second annual survey of state, regional and community-based health information exchange efforts. There is clear evidence that progress has been made by many in the field—25 health information exchange efforts in the U.S. are now fully operational as compared to 9 in 2004. 109 health information exchange efforts responded to the survey, representing 45 states and the District of Columbia.  One of the primary barriers cited by a majority of respondents to the survey, is the development of a sustainable model for health information exchange.

Over the coming months, the eHealth Initiative Foundation, under its cooperative agreement with HRSA, will support the collaborative development of common principles, policies, strategies and guides for navigating the organizational, legal, financial and technical aspects of health information exchange, with a significant focus on sustainability.  This information will be placed in the public domain to support the rapid acceleration of health information across the United States.

What are Our Plans for Year Two Awards?
The Foundation recently issued a call for proposals for year two community awards, supporting a subset of the 109 communities who submitted survey responses to the Foundation, who are experimenting with the development of sustainable models for health information exchange. Successful applicants will have engaged the commitment of a significant percentage of purchasers and payers in their markets who will commit to a pilot project for incentives that not only reward quality and efficiency, but also HIT capabilities within the physician’s office and health information exchange capabilities within the community. Proposals are due November 7, 2005 and awards will be issued soon thereafter.

How Do We Evaluate our Progress and Impact?
The eHealth Initiative Foundation takes special care to assure that every dollar spent under the Program serves the public interest and supports regions and communities engaged in health information exchange. Now that approximately forty percent of total Program funds have been delivered to the eHealth Initiative Foundation, we have begun to evaluate our progress and impact. The Foundation has developed a detailed project and program level evaluation plan and this plan is in the process of being implemented. Key components are as follows:

• What is happening around health information exchange in communities across the U.S.? Have we made progress since last year? The eHealth Initiative Foundation conducts and disseminates an annual assessment of progress in health information exchange. It also facilitates the sharing of case studies and lessons learned from health information exchange efforts through monthly calls, learning forums, publications and the online Connecting Communities Learning Network.
• Are the learning environments we are creating valuable? The eHealth Initiative Foundation has in place evaluation tools for all of its learning experiences and mechanisms, including the online Connecting Communities Learning Network, our learning forums, and our various publications. Our working group of communities gives us a great deal of feedback through phone calls, emails and face to face encounters to help us enhance the learning experience.
• Have the deliverables we’ve created been valuable? Are community stakeholders using them? The eHealth Initiative Foundation has implemented a range of tools designed to assess whether our deliverables are being used, and whether they are valuable.
• How can we help communities involved in health information exchange evaluate their own progress and improve? The eHealth Initiative Foundation in collaboration with a contractor, is developing a community assessment tool designed to assist those involved in health information exchange efforts to understand where they are in relation to other efforts and the steps they can take to move to the next stage of development.