The EHR/HIE Interoperability Workgroup (IWG) has formed a strategic relationship with the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) and Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) USA to streamline the process for achieving connectivity between electronic health record (EHR) and health information exchange (HIE) systems.
The collaboration was announced at the New York eHealth Collaborative's (NYeC) 2014 Digital Health Conference. The alliance will aim to strengthen IWG’s current program to test and certify EHRs and HIE vendors to enable reliable transfer of data within and across organizational and state boundaries. ICSA Labs has been selected as the testing and certification body for this effort.
The EHR/HIE Interoperability Workgroup is a New York-led consortium of 19 forward-thinking states and 47 EHR and HIE vendors that was formed in 2011 to increase the adoption of EHRs and HIE services by eliminating the significant “interface” cost and time barrier. The New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeC) created, led, and financed the IWG, whose members work together to develop integrated EHR capabilities so that data sharing across and between states and health IT systems will be more compatible.
"This joint effort will help pave the way for health information to be exchanged seamlessly between systems, allowing clinicians and health systems to more easily and securely share patient data,” Dave Whitlinger, executive director of NYeC, the coordinator of the Statewide Health Information Network of New York, said in a statement. “By making it easier for electronic health record systems to communicate, this new collaboration will help fulfill the promise of health information exchange, improving patient care and lowering healthcare costs.”
This effort builds on and accelerates consensus on national standards, adopting EHR certification criteria, and testing procedures as relevant for Stage 2 Meaningful Use. The collaboration will continue to provide feedback to the national health IT standard-setting initiatives established by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC).
