Select a Pathway

Use this page to pick which pathway(s) to follow.

How to Use this Guide

This guide is designed to help ministries of health, implementers and others involved in establishing eHealth architecture and health system project teams get started with health information exchange. Over the past few years we have observed that some implementers choose to start their journey by working in a specific OpenHIE component like a facility registry. Other implementers may choose to start with a health exchange project that allows for sharing of health data. While a third group started at a more foundational level like doing an eHealth Architecture or blueprint project. Each of these starting points has benefits and challenges. Ultimately, the components, the data exchange projects and the architecture are needed to benefit fully from health information exchange and none of these pathways is mutually exclusive. The path toward data exchange is a multi-faceted journey that will take time.

Use this guide to make progress on one or more pathways toward information exchange.

Pathways

Identify the type of project(s) that you are working on and click on the appropriate pathway.

Type of Project	Description / Implications
Component Project	Establishing a single component of the health information exchange architecture, like a facility registry or a health worker registry. When starting here, you are creating a foundation by establishing a component like a facility registry or a health worker registry. This approach provides a context for data exchange and may meet key needs, but may not include data exchange. To work on a component project, follow PATHWAY 1: Component and Data Exchange Projects
Exchange Project	Establishing data exchange between multiple components of the architecture. This project may also include or more component projects if the needed components are not already installed and in use. You may want to start here if you are initially exploring data exchange. However, you may note places where you need to define architecture components. Also, starting here implies that you need to do one or more component projects as well because components are required to do data exchange. To work on a data exchange project, follow PATHWAY 1: Component and Data Exchange Projects
Architecture Project	This is a project that defines the future architecture state desired to meet the health system use cases. It may involve inventorying the current applications in use, identifying key use cases to support, defining the future state and creating a road map and governance structure for moving to the ideal state. To work on an architecture project, follow PATHWAY 2: Architecture