Health Information Exchange as Learning Health System Infrastructure: What It Takes to Close the Loop Across Institutions

Presentation Type: Panel
2026 Symposium Spotlight Presentation

Presentation Time: 02:00 PM - 03:15 PM

Abstract Keywords: Interoperability and Health Information Exchange, Population Health, Public Health
Programmatic Theme: Public Health Informatics

To date, Learning Health Systems (LHS) have been built almost exclusively within individual institutional walls. Yet patient care is inherently multi-institutional, and population health extends far beyond any single health system’s catchment area.. Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) offer the only infrastructure already operating across these boundaries at population scale. They possess two exemplar assets required for an inter-institutional LHS: (1) multi-party governance among competing health systems, which cannot simply be purchased, and (2) a continuously operating data-to-evidence flow through mandated public health reporting, though it is rarely named as such. What is missing is not the pipe, but the return path. This panel convenes leaders from regional HIEs and multi-state research networks. Each will describe what their infrastructure does today and where the learning loop breaks down. The discussion will then turn to governance across competitors, who pays for the return path, and what a regional exchange can accomplish that other networks such as PCORnet cannot.

Moderator:
Yiye Zhang, PhD
Weill Cornell Medicine

Speaker(s):
Shaun Grannis, MD, MS, FAAFP, FACMI, FAMIA
Regenstrief Institute/Indiana University

Anjum Khurshid, MD, PhD
Harvard Medical School/ Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute

Jyotishman Pathak, PhD
Arizona State University

Neil Sarkar, PhD, MLIS
Brown University

Yiye Zhang, PhD
Weill Cornell Medicine

Author(s):
Shaun Grannis, MD, MS, FAAFP, FACMI, FAMIA - Regenstrief Institute/Indiana University; Anjum Khurshid, MD, PhD - Harvard Medical School/ Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute; Jyotishman Pathak, PhD - Arizona State University; Neil Sarkar, PhD, MLIS - Brown University; Yiye Zhang, PhD - Weill Cornell Medicine; Jiang Bian, PhD - Indiana University/Regenstrief Institute;