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RHODE ISLAND, May 8—The Rhode Island Quality Institute announces that it is one of nine regional health information organizations (RHIO) selected to participate in the first phase development of consensus on nationwide best practices for state-level RHIOs. The study will be conducted by the Foundation of Research and Education (FORE) of the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) and produce public domain information on best practices in the areas of governance, structure, financing, operations, and health information exchange policies.The project is under contract to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC).

“We are excited to be able to contribute to and benefit from this consensus project and hope to accelerate the development of the Rhode Island Quality Institute while helping to integrate state-level RHIOs into the health IT landscape,” states Laura Adams, President and CEO.

The project includes site visits and interviews and will be guided by a steering committee comprised of representatives from the nine state-level RHIOs.The steering committee will develop a framework for describing and disseminating best practices and model(s) and encouraging adoption and coordination among state-level RHIOs.The other states selected include: California, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Tennessee, and Utah.

“Many states like Rhode Island are developing strategies to advance the U.S. health IT agenda,” adds Linda Kloss, MA, RHIA, AHIMA’s CEO. “The time is right to bring these operational state-level RHIOs together to share successful and cost effective best practices.”

In addition, the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), other state-level RHIOs, and a variety of stakeholders will be actively involved in contributing to development of the consensus best practices through an open review process and a public consensus conference—co-convened by FORE and NCSL—scheduled for July 18 – 19, 2006 in Arlington, VA.

This project was announced in February 2006 by David J. Brailer, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology as a critical step in fostering state-level RHIOs across the nation.The estimated project completion date is August 31, 2006.

About the Rhode Island Quality Institute

The Rhode Island Quality Institute (RIQI) is a statewide collaboration of hospitals, physicians, health insurers, consumers, business, government and academia working together to significantly improve health care in Rhode Island.Founded in 2001, the RIQI’s strategic focus includes building a statewide health care information exchange and interoperability and ensuring the adoption of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) as the foundation for continual improvement in the quality of care.The RIQI is leveraging RI’s unique characteristics (small size, line of sight trust, and governmental accessibility) to demonstrate how the health care system can be improved through collaborative innovation.