HealthConnect's Patient Data Interoperability Platform

HealthConnect is a Health Information Exchange (HIE) serving a regional healthcare ecosystem of 12 hospitals, 200 physician practices, 30 laboratories, 15 pharmacies, and 5 insurance payers. The HIE must enable seamless sharing of patient data across these organizations to improve care coordination, reduce duplicate testing, and support population health management. Interoperability challenges are severe: hospitals use four different EHR vendors (Epic, Cerner, Meditech, Allscripts), laboratories transmit results in HL7v2, newer systems support FHIR APIs, and insurance payers require data in X12 EDI format. Patient identification is inconsistent across organizations with no universal patient identifier. Recent patient safety incidents include a patient receiving a contraindicated medication because their allergy information from another hospital was not accessible, and unnecessary repeat imaging because prior results could not be retrieved across systems. The state has mandated participation in the HIE, with a compliance deadline of 18 months.