Beginning April 2014, health IT leaders started to make it possible for all types of HIEs to connect to each other. The leaders created Carequality http://sequoiaproject.org/carequality to address the technical, legal, and regulatory hurdles standing in the way of inter-network connections. Now after more than two years of creating the framework and testing it in production, Carequality is now live.
At select sites, providers using athenahealth®, eClinical works, Epic, HIETexas, NextGen, and Surescripts are now sharing health information with other providers using the Carequality Interoperability Framework http://sequoiaproject.org/carequality/resources.
Published last December, the Framework provides the necessary legal terms, policy requirements, technical specifications, and governance processes to enable interoperability between and among many healthcare data sharing networks and programs serving diverse user communities nationwide.
The Framework adopted by 13 pioneering health organizations is working to enable patients and providers to securely share health data across health IT platforms and geographies as never before. Many more networks and health organizations are in various stages of adoption and implementation planning.
To date, more than 3,000 clinics and 200 hospitals are live on Carequality and can share health data. Live exchange has already occurred in four states with expansion underway as more participants go live on a regular basis.
The participating organizations representing healthcare’s largest ambulatory vendors, a leading clinical information network, plus 30 percent of the inpatient market are aggressively rolling out to their user communities nationwide.
“Carequality is advancing the promise and potential of health data sharing with patients and providers as the standard of care”, explained Dave Cassel, Director of Carequality. “With a single unified health data sharing agreement built upon Carequality’s ground-breaking “Principles of Trust”, there is no more need to negotiate one-off legal agreements with individual data sharing partners. Carequality implementers and their clients are now able to connect more quickly and it is easier than ever before.”
Go to http://sequoiaproject.org/carequality/members-and-supporters for information on the 13 pioneering health organizations that have adopted the Framework.