COLUMBIA, SC – Statewide and regional health information exchange initiatives see the federal stimulus package as a new source of healthcare IT funding.

To meet funding requirements, the exchanges, or HIEs, must rely on IT partners to collaborate on a comprehensive technology platform.

Payers have played a critical role in HIEs because of their claims data, but Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina’s wholly owned subsidiary, Companion Data Services, or CDS, delivers additional value as an IT partner because of its distinction as one of the top IBM data centers globally.

Steven Emery, director of product management for HealthPort, a practice management and electronic document management systems company, dubbed CDS’ IBM data center as “the Fort Knox of healthcare data storage.” Most state HIE initiatives want housed applications that can scale as the HIE gets bigger, he said.

Steve Hammons, CDS’ COO, said the company’s “experience in physical and network security and claims data receipt and storage, as well as knowledge of claims data and manipulation will be essential to meet the needs of this evolving HIE market.”

This is especially true as HIE initiatives begin to add new requirements around privacy and security to qualify for stimulus funding, he said.

“The addition of claims data and heightened security measures will require complementary vendors to serve the market in the future,” said Hammons.

Emery agreed there is too much technological work for any one vendor or group to tackle. While some RFPs, such as in Arizona, are looking for one vendor to handle just the EMR system for group-purchasing purposes, others are looking for one HIE vendor to build out the network with best-of-breed technology partners.

The Informatics Corp. of America has worked with HIEs, including the Health Information Exchange of Montana, and is working on RFPs with CDS. John Tempesco, vice president of client services and marketing, stressed the importance of integrators and aggregators to make all the applications and systems – ambulatory EHRs, e-prescribing, claims data, personal health records, and so on – work together seamlessly.

“We’re going to have strange bedfellows,” he said. “Traditional competitors will have to work together to fulfill the needs of a true, open, sustainable HIE.”