Impact Statements

"Our law practice, informed by the work of Connecting for Health, has helped many RHIOs and health systems in crafting policies, contracts and documentation to enable sharing information electronically with others. As a part of Connecting for Health - and its very diverse participants and their real-world experiences - we helped to develop best practices and policies and authored a model data sharing agreement to guide networks in the development of appropriate privacy and security policies and straight-forward data sharing agreements. This process had the benefit of sharing expertise widely, saving the next wave of regional networks from having to start from scratch in this regard, defining a process for decision-making and allowing them to place their efforts in the larger context, all with a view of bringing the nation towards sufficient uniformity that sharing data cross the country can now be imagined. This is an example of how Connecting for Health went beyond merely publishing abstract principles to create resources that organizations can use to address their own data sharing documentation requirements and begin to anticipate the challenges of network to network exchange."