PORTLAND, ME – Maine has launched what officials are calling the largest statewide health information exchange in the nation that uses clinical data. And the Obama administration’s healthcare IT chief says it could be a model for the rest of the country even as Connecticut, New York, Maryland Massachusetts are launching launch their own HIE initiatives this summer.

“I’m impressed and grateful for the InfoNet example,” David Blumenthal, MD, the national coordinator for health information technology, told an audience of healthcare leaders last month in Maine. “Your example makes clear what power there is in local leadership. Each local institution, each local community, each local provider of care has to go through their own struggles.”

“Reform will not be successful directed from a national standpoint,” he said, “but can only be accomplished locally.”

Devore Culver knows that all too well. He is the CEO of HealthInfoNet, which is what the Maine network is called, and many of Maine’s healthcare leaders refer to him as a visionary. Culver calls HealthInfoNet “a starting model.” He acknowledges the achievement, but sees some functions as “so, so rudimentary,” as he told Blumenthal when a small group saw the system up close at Maine Medical Center last month, one of the hospitals in the network.

“If we want to realize our ambition, we’re going to have to support health information exchange,” Blumenthal had told the audience earlier

Blumenthal’s office will be disbursing
$2 billion to help physician offices that want to become ‘meaningful users’ of health IT. There is also $300 million in the federal stimulus package for promotion of health information exchange.

But Blumenthal said he did not yet have an answer about how those funds might be accessed.

HealthInfoNet includes 15 rural and urban hospitals and about 2,000 physicians. Some $8 million has been raised so far to build the network, and officials say another $12 million is needed to build out the statewide infrastructure. HealthInfoNet has tapped 3M Health Information Systems, Orion Health and DrFirst as its technology partners.

Culver and David Howes, MD, chairman of the HealthInfoNet board of directors, stressed the benefits of a public-private partnership that includes providers, state and local officials and consumers.

Howes noted that despite a state budget shortfall, state lawmakers included $1.7 million in the 2010-2011 budget to make it possible for HealthInfoNet to go live this summer. He said it also positions Maine to receive federal funds through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

“From the start we have taken a truly collaborative approach to building a statewide exchange,” he said. “As other states move forward on their own plans to develop statewide systems, we believe that Maine can offer important lessons learned that could help accelerate adoption of electronic systems. I’ve come to view this as a very early stage public utility