WASHINGTON – In the latest move to provide better insight into regional health information organizations, three healthcare IT organizations have taken the concept of the popular Wikipedia site and applied it to an online tool that enables users to create, edit and share information about regional health information organizations.

The Center for Health Transformation, the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives and eHealth Initiative have launched RHIO Wiki, an interactive site on health information exchange and regional health information organizations, or RHIOs.

The site will operate much like the popular Wikipedia site, which allows users to create and edit content. The RHIO Wiki will enable users to access information on local and regional data exchange programs, share their own experiences or ask questions.

“The functionality of a Wiki is something that attracted us because it’s a grassroots tool,” said David Merritt, project director for the Center for Health Transformation, an organization led by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

The initiative is the groups’ first cooperative effort, said Sue Schade, CIO of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and chair of advocacy efforts for CHIME.

The intent of the RHIO Wiki is to provide an interactive forum where those interested in forming and promulgating these networks can share ideas, post questions and have discussions, Schade said.

“RHIOs will all be unique and a little different in their markets and regions; at the same time, there’s so much commonality among them,” she said. “We want it to be a place to learn from others and to contribute some of our experiences.”

The organizations involved with the RHIO Wiki will first make the ability to edit content and participate in the discussion forums available to their members. The public now can access the Wiki, but won’t be able to participate in the interactive parts of the site until this summer.

Merritt said the groups involved decided to make it available to members first to avoid the possibility that the site could be hijacked. Making the interactive portion of the tool available to the public at a later date gives the site a chance to establish a good self-policing mechanism, he said.

The groups announced the tool’s availability during eHI’s Third Annual Connecting Communities Learning Forum in Washington, D.C. The three groups that cooperated on the Wiki could work together on a future educational project, although a specific project hasn’t been publicly identified, Schade said.

The initiative is the latest in a series of projects that various organizations are undertaking to enhance understanding of RHIOs.