People are not static - they travel for business and visit family and friends in other cities and states. And while they're on the move, they may require episodic healthcare or see specialty clinicians in other locations.

Advances made in interoperability and data sharing on a national scale have been critical to the seamless exchange of patient health information. eHealth Exchange is the largest query-based, health information network in the country and is active in all 50 states.

Like GaHIN, eHealth Exchange is a network of networks, facilitating the exchange of medical data to improve patient care and public health.

Prior to eHealth Exchange, GaHIN established one-to-one connections with surrounding states and the VA/DOD to support interoperability; now those connections are facilitated through eHealth Exchange.

GaHIN was among the first HIEs in the country to directly connect to the VA. Our new platform implementation required a change to that connection and after two months of testing, the new connection is expected to go live on June 1.

Georgia's largest health system, Piedmont Healthcare, recently joined eHealth Exchange and GaHIN is establishing a connection which is expected to be complete the first week of June. Piedmont serves 3.4 million patients across 1,400 locations, including 22 hospitals, 55 Piedmont Urgent Care centers, 25 QuickCare locations, 1,875 Piedmont Clinic physician practices and more than 2,800 Piedmont Clinic members.

GaHIN has been monitoring the documents requested by health systems to create new connections through eHealth Exchange. In April, these health systems topped the list of document requests:

All three organizations have been added to GaHIN's existing eHealth Exchange existing direct connections: