What Killed the Santa Barbara County Care Data Exchange?
The Santa Barbara County Care Data Exchange is no more. There was hardly an obituary to note its passing. A fitting tribute might have included phrases like: “ahead of its time” or “potential never realized” or “it was harder than it looked.” What might be more valuable than an obit is a post mortem. The challenges that SBCCDE confronted — many of which were overcome and some of which led to its demise — are challenges that every care data exchange and regional health information organization should study and address directly. There are many lessons to be learned from SBCCDE’s fate. In early 1998, the Santa Barbara County Regional Health Authority met with Jack Lewin, the president of the California Medical Society, to discuss his call for an electronic health record system with data sharing capacity because the Health Authority wanted to pilot such a technology. Shortly thereafter, the Health Authority, Lewin and leaders from the California HealthCare Foundation met at the Pacific B
