Don't Forget the Business Case

John Halamka, the omnipresent CIO for half the health care organizations in Massachusetts, has been every engaged in the problems of sharing data among institutions for some time. In his end-of-the-year summary blog, he distills his 2008 RHIO experience (he's the CEO of MA-SHARE, the Regional Health Information Organization) down to this lesson learned:

Health information exchange for technology's sake is not sustainable. There must be a business value case.

So, as we build RHIOs and shared data systems of all kinds, let's look for solid data that there is a reward to whomever is paying the freight. Likewise, let's make sure that whomever gets the rewards pays to develop and support the system.

Thanks John, and Happy New Year!