A small organization that operates a massive database of Idaho patient medical records filed for bankruptcy on Friday, reporting it owes creditors $4 million and is defending itself in three lawsuits, Boise State Public Radio reported. Chapter 11 bankruptcy will allow the Idaho Health Data Exchange to keep operating while it pays creditors and works through litigation, according to its bankruptcy attorney, Matthew T. Christensen of the Johnson May law firm in Boise. The health data exchange is a nonprofit organization that provides a centralized repository of health records. It allows participating health care providers to see each other’s records for individual patients — so that, for example, a primary care doctor in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, could access X-ray records for their patient who was treated for a broken bone in Nampa. The IHDE currently lists 194 health care providers and organizations among its participants, including the state’s largest health systems. The Idaho Health Data Exchange launched in 2009 and relied mainly on government funds intended to modernize health records infrastructure. For example, it received $5.9 million of federal funding in 2010 as the designated health information exchange for Idaho. More recently, the health data exchange received millions of dollars of federal funds per year through the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare. That income stream ended when the HITECH Act, a 2009 law, expired last year, according to the health data exchange’s executive director and its bankruptcy attorney.
