HIEs are the hubs for exchange of electronic information. It's great that they have a EMPI, so that users are not alone in trying to match patients. I am not sure what your needs are in information exchange. I hear that AC development is going to try to connect to all 50 HIEs. If hospitals and other institutions will do the same, then all can exchange data without worrying about point to point interfaces. For example, if our hospital subscribes to HIE, I can then import labs directly into AC. The web portal is one way to see patient information from your data 'trading partners', but AC can develop an interface to your HIE so that all that patient matching and data exchange will be transparent to you.
