The key to building the eHealth Exchange, the largest data sharing network of its kind in the U.S is industry and government collaboration and continual testing,” according to Mariann Yeager CEO of The Sequoia Project www.sequoiaproject.org keynoter at the IHE World Summit held in Amsterdam Netherlands.
Yeager shared lessons learned and drew parallels of the federated structure for the eHealth Exchange for an audience of public and private sector healthcare leaders from across Europe. “Collaboration of industry and government is critical to successful cross-boundary health data sharing, Today’s healthcare IT interoperability in the U.S. is a result of customer demand and the Federal government’s push for a uniform approach.”
The IHE World Summit held in parallel to eHealth Week in Amsterdam brings together healthcare IT system users and developers to address interoperability issues that impact clinical care worldwide.
The eHealth Exchange network was initially located within the HHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT but the office was transitioned to a public private collaborative initiative supported by the Sequoia Project.
Current eHealth Exchange participants include large health systems, hospitals, pharmacies, regional health data sharing networks and four U.S federal agencies representing nearly one-half of all U.S hospitals, tens of thousands of medical groups, more than 8,000 pharmacies, and 100 million patients.