Data Sharing to Enable Clinical Transformation at the Community Level: IT Takes a Village

is one of a series of evaluations of the Beacon program authored by NORC. This brief examines the Beacon Communities approaches to and experiences with building and strengthening their health IT infrastructures, specifically with respect to data sharing to enable clinical transformation. NORC found that despite diverse characteristics, Beacon Communities reported several common promising practices that facilitated data sharing across the local health care systems. Many Beacons also found it crucial to build in flexibility to help practices at all levels of readiness, from smaller practices with basic health IT capabilities to large hospital systems to achieve that data sharing.