Although they did not receive a Health Information Exchange (HIE) grant in the first round of funding, the State of Mississippi Department of Information Technology Services (ITS) released a Request for Proposals (RFP) for consulting services for the development of the strategic and operational plans for their statewide health information exchange (HIE). Questions are due by March 12 and Proposals are due by March 24, 2010. INPUT is tracking the opportunity under ID #61702.

Once strategic and operational plans are in place, the State intends to procure and implement the infrastructure for their HIE, the Mississippi Health Information Network (M-HIN). M-HIN should be capable of interfacing with providers of care, public health organizations, and local and regional HIE's as well as the National Health Information Network (NHIN). The Mississippi Health Information Infrastructure Task Force will serve as the governing structure until June 30, 2010. ITS is serving as the State Designated Entity for the State HIE Cooperative Agreement Program.

It is anticipated that states' plans will reflect the existing variety of HIE approaches and levels of readiness. Mississippi already has experience in the HIE arena- in 2008 Medicity Inc was chosen to implement the Mississippi Coastal Health Information Exchange (MSCHIE), which helped to restructure and improve patient care delivery in the six coastal counties that were most affected by Hurricane Katrina. More information on Mississippi's Health Information Technology profile can be found here.