Health IT experts have a dream for the healthcare sector. In order to meet a movement within this industry centered on unifying medical specialists across the board, health IT professionals believe that the best option is to form a public health information exchange (HIE) that would connect medical facilities across the country. EHR systems are only the first step in the latest innovations within the healthcare arena.

However, InformationWeek Healthcare reports that, despite the fact that the HIE market grew 40 percent in the last year, most of its expansion has been in the private sector instead of in public systems that connect medical providers across the nation.

A report from Chilmark Research, a healthcare IT industry analyst firm, details this growth in the HIE market. Chilmark covers how meaningful use requirements are pushing the healthcare sector into implementing HIE systems, especially since many patients must be moved between different medical facilities, such as from a hospital to a rehabilitation clinic.

Chilmark CEO John Moore said in an interview that the upcoming reform in payment and reimbursement systems will bring a greater need for care coordination, often in the form of EHR software and HIE systems.

"[The] HIE connects the hospital and the community of private medical practices. It selectively pushes patient data back and forth among providers. It sends data about a patient's hospital stay or hospital-based outpatient clinic visit, for instance, into a physician portal, and to a community physician's EHR system, depending on each clinician's needs," the news source stated.

Chiropractic offices and other healthcare organizations that are seeking to form an HIE must first adopt EHR systems from a trusted vendor of chiropractic management software.