The new, fee-based service replaces paper-based reports that were delivered to physicians by fax, postal mail or courier, said J. Marc Overhage, IHIE's CEO and president.

Using the electronic system, it costs 17 to 37 cents to send a message, compared with about 81 cents per message using the old system, he said.

All of the participating hospitals notified physicians in mid-2004 of their plans to transmit all patient data using the IHIE system by the end of this year. As of early this month, about 90 percent of messages were being sent electronically, and the rest were being sent via fax, Overhage said.

The clinical messaging service uses data gathered by Indianapolis hospitals and labs to populate the city's Indiana Network for Patient Care electronic medical records system. The service converts the data into a consistent report format for delivery to physicians through a portal.

Test Run