The overwhelming message we distilled from this overview is that it is not necessarily the technical roadblocks that have most limited opportunities for clinical data exchange – but instead:
- Overcoming the difficulty in bringing diverse stakeholders together towards a common goal, and
- Carefully addressing the need to protect privacy and security; creating the governance models, agreements, policies and practices for building these kinds of exchanges, and
- Building a compelling and sustainable model for devoting ongoing funding, resources and commitment to these projects.
Leadership and vision of a community’s hospitals, physicians, health plans, and public health agencies, combined with the leadership of an effective convener, were common traits in all of the clinical exchange efforts reviewed in this report.
