BioCrossroads, the public-private research collaborative that
organized the Indiana Health Information Exchange, released a report at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society annual conference in Orlando, Fla., this week detailing how Indiana's health IT industry has grown to include 72 startup companies with 2,500 workers and $202 million in revenue.
The 36-page report,
From Dishwashers to Digital Medical Records—Indiana's Leadership in Health Information Technology (PDF), credits part of this growth to more than $115 million in philanthropic research grants given to such establishments as the Indiana University School of Medicine's Regenstrief Institute in Indianapolis. The title of the report is a nod to a source of some of those funds: the fortune Sam “the Dishwasher King” Regenstrief developed by integrating digital controls into kitchen appliances.
The report notes how the Indiana HIE serves as a model for others to follow with its fee-for-service business model and collaboration between the state's five health systems, payers and public agencies. “While other regions across the United States are still organizing plans for action, Indiana has moved to a phase of regional and statewide implementation of an increasingly interoperable system for the ‘meaningful use' of HIT,” the report concludes.
