CareSpark Ceases Operations of RHIO

CareSpark’s Board of Directors voted recently, with regret, to cease operations. CareSpark, despite great effort, was unable to transition from a grant and contract based nonprofit organization to a user subscription and revenue sustained entity. The Board believes this is a great loss to the region and believes that other resources needed to provide exchange services, assist providers in meeting meaningful use requirements and CareSpark’s core mission of regional health improvement through health information sharing will need to develop.

CareSpark was formed in 2005 after a two year health improvement planning process and is a regional 501(3)c non-profit organization to improve health for people in northeast Tennessee and southwest Virginia. In May CareSpark took its services offline to finish developing a new infrastructure that it hoped would meet the needs of local healthcare providers and bring additional value that providers would be willing to support financially. Because the level of financial support for this new infrastructure was not available, it was not brought online. In expectation of this new infrastructure all connections have been terminated.

CareSpark is working to contact the 38 health organizations with whom it had data sharing agreements to arrange a meeting to complete planning for a secure and orderly transition. CareSpark remains committed to safeguarding the data entrusted to it and to be transparent and community focused as it wraps up its affairs over the next several months. In addition to the data participants, CareSpark is contacting all other parties with which it has contractual relationships.