History

HealthInfoNet began as a project called the Maine Health Information Network Technology or MHINT in 2004. Four groups, including the Maine Health Access Foundation, the Maine Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Maine Quality Forum and the Maine Health Information Center, came together to determine if Maine was ready to develop a single patient health record across competing healthcare organizations. The study found strong support amongst health care providers and other stakeholders.

In 2005 a wide range of stakeholders representing providers, consumers, businesses, payers and government were brought together to create the organization that would operate Maine’s health information exchange. The group went through an extensive planning and development process to design the structure of the organization and recruit an executive director. In early 2006 MHINT was renamed HealthInfoNet and incorporated as an independent nonprofit organization. Devore Culver, former CIO at Eastern Maine Health Systems was hired as HealthInfoNet’s first Executive Director and CEO.

After two years of development, HealthInfoNet began a demonstration project connecting 15 Maine hospitals and one multi-site primary care practice. The primary goals of the two-year demonstration phase were to prove the technology worked, and that the system could lead to safer, better coordinated, higher quality and more efficient patient care. In June 2010, the demonstration concluded with both goals achieved and 15 hospitals and one multi-site primary care practice participating in the health information exchange. The health information exchange is now expanding statewide. As part of that expansion, HealthInfoNet is part of the Bangor Beacon Community project to demonstrate how connecting providers across a single community to the health information exchange can improve care and population health while reducing costs.