Mississippi Seeks Vendor to Rebuild Statewide Health Data Exchange
Mississippi is working to build a new statewide health information exchange to let hospitals, providers, pharmacies, labs and emergency services securely share patient data, Gov. Tate Reeves said at an Oct. 21 press conference. The exchange will initially be funded by the federal Rural Health Transformation Program, a $50 billion, five-year program meant to spur rural health innovation and offset Medicaid cuts. The state's application for a vendor to create and operate the exchange closed Nov. 3, with services expected to begin in January; the contractor will be expected to build a system that aggregates and distributes health data as a public good, with core goals including trauma care coordination, clinical information access and centralized imaging. This follows an earlier state network, established in 2010 with federal grant funding, that the Legislature declined to renew in 2019.