Welcome to the eHealth Initiative Toolkit

National, state and local leaders alike are looking for ways to improve upon their efforts to bring multiple stakeholders together to collaborate on health IT adoption and the exchange of information electronically across organizations to improve the quality, safety and efficiency of health care. The eHealth Initiative Toolkit is designed to provide useful information to support health care leaders with the various challenges associated with health IT and health information exchange adoption.

Key Focus Areas
Key focus areas are modeled after the categories of the eHealth Initiative Blueprint: From Consensus to Common Action, with a few additions that address common challenges.

• Getting Organized
• Engaging Consumers
• Transforming Care Delivery
• Improving Population Heatlh
• Aligning Financial and Other Incentives
• Managing Privacy, Confidentiality and Security
• Managing Technology and Standards
• Influencing Policy

Categories of Information
For the most part, users will find information which falls into the following key categories, for each section:

• Introduction
• Shared Vision
• Principles
• Strategies and Actions
• Best Practices
• Resources and Tools
• Leadership

In some cases, eHI has not reached consensus on some of these categories of information, and in those cases, you won’t find information related to this topic in the Toolkit.

How Was the Toolkit Developed?
Content for the Toolkit was developed by hundreds of individuals representing organizations from across every sector of health care. eHI multi-stakeholder working groups focused on issues such as practice transformation, financing and sustainability, organization and governance, and technology, developed common principles, strategies and tools designed to help national, state and local experts navigate these areas. Much of the Toolkit was derived from the eHealth Initiative Blueprint: From Consensus to Common Action, an initiative launched in 2007 which resulted in consensus on common principles, strategies and actions for improving health and health care through health IT. Finally, many of the lessons learned from 12 community-based health information exchange initiatives who were funded through the eHI Connecting Communities Program under a cooperative agreement with the Department of Health and Human Services Health Resources and Services Administration, provided tools and resources for the Toolkit. In its first iteration, the eHealth Initiative Toolkit (formerly called the eHI Connecting Communities Toolkit) was supported by a cooperative agreement with HRSA/OAT. Since the time of its initial development, the Toolkit has changed considerably, with support of the eHealth Initiative Foundation.

The Toolkit is an evolving resource, which gets better with the input of national, state and local leaders who contribute their expertise and experiences. Over the next several weeks, you will see the Toolkit evolve, as eHI receives more and more best practices and expert insights on how to improve health and health care through health IT and health information exchange, through a targeted outreach process—focusing particularly on creating a business case and sustainable model for interoperable health IT—a key focus of the eHealth Initiative Foundation’s Partnership for Connecting Communities Program.