eHealth Exchange, a non-profit started by Health & Human Services and now a separate non-profit, helps health care institutions exchange over two billion records a month. In this video, President Jay Nakashima explains the role they play, particularly in public health, scaling FHIR and TEFCA.
Currently, all notifiable conditions (an instance of a communicable illnesses) go through eHealth Exchange electronically, but we are working to further role out case investigations to allow public health agencies to query for additional information when they receive a notification rather that using old-fashioned phone calls or faxes. eHealth Exchange is working with the industry and with regulators to improve response rates so public health agencies can get the data they need to protect Americans’ health.
Nakashima presents an interesting history of eHealth Exchange (originally named the National Health Information Network), including how close it came to being shut down after it first demonstrated in 2006 that the electronic exchange of patient documents was feasible. It is still around and thriving as a non-profit.
It builds trust by setting very strict policies about who can join the network and what information it can request. It also doesn’t use data for secondary purposes. Nakashima says members can review all their transactions. This context is important to consider in light of the past year’s disputes over patient privacy, interpretation on policy, and allegations of inappropriate requests for data in other parts of the data sharing community.
As one of the first designated Qualified Health Information Network (QHIN), Nakashima is confident the TEFCA trusted exchange framework will continue to be increasingly adopted. He is also looking forward to wider adoption of FHIR, which eHealth Exchange has been working with since 2017. He says theFDA is “really ahead of the pack,” moving completely to FHIR APIs and encouraging its use by providers and payers. Nakashima also shares about Indian Health Service recently going live on TEFCA with eHealth Exchange as its designated QHIN.
Watch the video for more information on the organizations eHealth Exchange serves and its future plans.
Learn more about eHealth Exchange: https://ehealthexchange.org/
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