Our Company

We got our start in 2004 as a result of a feasibility study led by the Maine Health Access Foundation, the Maine Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Maine Quality Forum, and the Maine Health Information Center. Known as the Maine Health Information Network Technology (MHINT) project, the study’s objective was to determine the need among Maine’s health care providers to more effectively coordinate statewide, electronic exchange of patient health information among unaffiliated providers in the value of patient care and population health. The study concluded with resounding support.

By 2005, the MHINT project resumed with a larger group of public and private health care stakeholders to further explore and develop plans for what it would take to actualize the concept of Health Information Exchange (HIE) in Maine. This process led to the formal establishment of HealthInfoNet in 2006, incorporated as an independent, 501(c)(3) non-profit organization with a mission to develop and oversee Maine’s statewide HIE network, infrastructure, and services.

Following our incorporation, we began a 24-month demonstration project in 2008 to capture, consolidate, and curate a minimal viable data set of patient health information with support from Maine’s leading health care providers: Central Maine Health Care, Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems (now Northern Light Health), Franklin Memorial Hospital (now part of MaineHealth), MaineGeneral Health, MaineHealth, and Martin’s Point Healthcare. This project marked the first time in Maine that unaffiliated health care organizations agreed to systematically share real-time person-level clinical information with the goal of improving the safety and quality of care rather than to leverage it for competition.

With the demonstration project proving the concept of HIE in Maine to be successful, we subsequently initiated a statewide campaign to establish expanded connections with health care organizations in a voluntary-based participation model. Since then, our efforts have been guided by our passion to facilitate improvements in the health-related outcomes, risks, conditions, and drivers of the individuals who our participants serve in Maine and beyond.