Carequality was launched earlier this year under the management of Healtheway www.healthewayinc.org a non-profit, public-private collaborative to advance interoperable health information exchange.
Carequality was initiated to tie together many valuable health information exchange activities occurring in the country and to solve the final mile of interoperability between them. The goal is to create a system where healthcare organizations will share information securely over the internet, regardless of the specific technology platform or network used.
During the first six months of operation, Carequality members have been working to codify a solid governance process and attract a strong stakeholder base. Member organizations such as Epic, Surescripts, DOD, SSA, Walgreens, Kaiser Permanente, CommonWell Health Alliance plus others have spent the last six months setting up the organizations governance, processes, and work groups.
As a result, on November 3, 2014, Healtheway announced the appointment of the Carequality www.carequality.org Steering Committee, Advisory Council, plus two working groups. These committees are represented by providers, pharmacies, long-term and post-acute care facilities, consumers, government, standards development organizations, and vendors.
“Because we’re hoping to accomplish something on a massive, national scale, we knew we needed broad participation from government and industry, so it was very important to give careful consideration and include both large and small organizations,” said Mariann Yeager, Healtheway CEO.
The Steering Committee is responsible for the Carequality strategy as well as to develop a fair, equitable, and practical process for developing and maintaining an interoperability framework. The Advisory Council serves as the broad stakeholder group to provide information on ongoing work and progress. The workgroups will focus on solving specific interoperability challenges related to a set of principles for trust.
The Trust Framework Group will create a set of policy principles to establish trust between networks to enable the electronic exchange of health information. The Query Work Group will develop a requirements artifact that will outline business, technical, testing, and policy requirements to enable simple query of documents between networks.
According to Steering Committee Chair, Dr. Michael Hodgkins, CMIO, American Medical Association, “As a founding member of Carequality, the AMA looks forward to working with other members as we continue to pursue electronic health information exchange to help physicians coordinate care and improve patient health outcomes. The AMA has long advocated for cost-effective, secure information exchange solutions that are both patient and physician friendly.”