A state-based approach to privacy and security for interoperable health information exchange.

For the past three years, a collaboration of states and territories has examined the variation in organization-level practices, policies, and state laws governing the privacy and security of health information. An interoperable system of health information exchange (HIE) will have difficulty accommodating the current variation in policy requirements; therefore, it is important for organizations to come to agreement on a common set of widely shared policies. The project has created a lasting, coordinated network of state-level stakeholders that work together to reduce variation and propose common policies to protect health information and facilitate electronic HIE.