Many people want an answer to what actually is a Health Information Exchange. It is interesting that the fact that people are not simply after a Health Information Exchange definition, but are also concerned regarding whether the phrase “Health Information Exchange” is just a concept or actually a way to facilitate medical coding, billing and documentation accuracy that meets your HIM revenue cycle requirements. The official connotation of the phrase is that it is a platform for easy retrieval of, and use of patient medical data for treatment or statistical analyses for studies and trends in care or diseases.

Below is one official Health Information Exchange definition that not only relates to the characteristics of HIE, but also discusses its stance in the healthcare market sector after five years of testing and implementation.

“HIE (Health Information Exchange) refers to the technological network infrastructure, that has the chief purpose of assuring accurate medical information exchange. This patient data and electronic health records (EHR), which is digital information and secure, is clinical information used in between medical organizations who are responsible for providing healthcare to the patients. A Health Information Exchange provides a technology platform that promotes collaborative care models that are crucial to improve the value and quality of the healthcare provided.”

The second, yet critically imperative question, states whether the phrase “Health Information Exchange” is a noun or a verb, is answered below.

Plenty debate has been recorded on this subject, and finally the HHS and the numerous states working on HIE and its promotion, have came to a conclusion concerning the definition. They state that the phrase “Health Information Exchange” is a verb, while the phrase “Health Information Organization” (HIO) is a noun. Therefore, all the tasks that the “Health Information Organization” performs are termed a “Health Information Exchange” as this is the technology platform, which supports the retrieval, transmission and maintenance of accurate medical data.

Several definitions have been put forward to date, and most have them have been claimed as inadequate, or sometimes an exaggeration of what a platform really is, namely a tool to facilitate data usage. Health Information Exchange definition forums are in wide use on the Internet with professionals from different parts of the world discussing the matter and working to define this new technology aspect of healthcare.

Professional Dynamic Network (Chicago) currently provides secure data handling across multiple technology platforms.