Regional Health Information Organizations may be changing their finance strategies. In the wake of high-profile RHIO closings and report by Harvard researchers suggesting that RHIOs may be floundering financially, organizers may be teaching themselves some basic fundraising skills.
The health IT research and analysis organization Healthcare IT Transition Group (HITTG) reports evidence that Regional Health Information Organizations may be changing their finance strategies.
In the wake of high-profile RHIO closings, and in the shadow cast by a recent report published by Health Affairs suggesting that RHIOs are floundering financially, it is not surprising that RHIO organizers are exploring new resources for capital.
A 2007 HITTG survey (http://rhio.hittransition.com ) found that about three-fourths of the U.S. health information exchanges are setup as nonprofit organizations, enjoying both and exemption from taxes, and the ability to accept tax-deductible contributions from private foundations.
However, the report also noted that only very small amounts of private funding was finding its way into the RHIO movement; the majority of the organizations were relying on government dollars to start up operations, and were expecting to pay for ongoing costs by charging healthcare providers for their services.
According to the study’s lead investigator Michael Christopher, “Between the annual surveys we have no scientific way to quantify what is changing in this segment. But we have some interesting evidence that RHIOs may be acquiring some new fundraising chops.” HITTG recently published an 892-page listing of potential private funding sources for RHIOs and provider health IT projects, and, according to the organization, a significant portion of sales have been to RHIOs, and to some of the software vendors who sell RHIO technology. “The Health IT Grant Resource Directory” (http://funding.hittransition.com ) is organized as five regionally-focused volumes, each listing 362 national grantmakers and between 660 and 1,200 regional grantmakers. In addition to funder contact information and other listing data, the volumes contain advice on promoting health IT projects to funders.
“We worked on the funding directory for two years, at the same time we were studying the RHIO space and finding that most seemed to be unaware of these private sources,” Christopher noted. Although a majority of hospitals and health systems are nonprofit organizations, these organizations, which provide most of the leadership within RHIOs, follow an essentially commercial business model based on health plan reimbursements and fees paid by patients. “We have felt that the mindset was so strongly built around earned income that RHIOs were blind, or at least a bit fuzzy, on how most nonprofits are funded. If this signals a turnaround, it might be a very good thing.”
Healthcare IT Transition Group (HITTGroup) http://hittransition.com is a technology and policy consultancy that works with organizations to reduce the cost and improve the quality of healthcare through the use of information technology. The company’s clients include healthcare providers large and small, healthcare industry software developers and technical services companies, and some of the nation's largest health plans.
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