DirectTrust, a nonprofit healthcare industry alliance, is seeking to develop a new standard to support a voluntary nationwide patient credential and matching ecosystem.
The goal of the Privacy-Enhancing Health Record Locator Service (PEHRLS) Ecosystem Consensus Body is to identify existing standards, profile existing standards, and create new standards as needed for a privacy-enhancing record locator along with the interactions of associated actors. The new standard would define electronic interactions among Identity Providers, Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems, Health Information Exchanges (HIEs), Health Information Networks (HINs), and a Record Locator Service (RLS).
While there is broad agreement that the only way to improve patient matching and health record location to a near 100 percent solution is a universal patient ID, the prohibition against government action on such a solution has remained in place since HIPAA was enacted, DirectTrust noted. The new standard would define a model that could be deployed either voluntarily by the private sector, or with the support of government funding or encouragement in the future. Deployment of such a standard could improve efficiency and reduce costs for query-based exchange, Direct exchange, and patient-mediated exchange by reducing infrastructure requirements and computing costs. Most importantly, such a model could enable the long sought-after goal of reliably assembling a longitudinal health record for patients.
The anticipated benefits of the PEHRLS Ecosystem Standard include:
• A privacy-enhancing record locator and shared identifier service that can be deployed incrementally at low cost to support, potentially, 100% patient-matching success.
• Identity-assurance provided by Identity Providers (IdPs) that identity-proof, issue credentials, and enable access to the shared identifier service.
• Patient access to their own records from multiple locations with a single credential and match reliability that will convince reticent data holders of its safety.
• Rights of access for all parties, enabling assembly of a longitudinal patient record with existing mechanisms for exchange.
• Improved fidelity of patient matching for all mechanisms of exchange.
“Managing identity and health information interoperability in healthcare is a special problem unlike other identity and identifier topics,” explained Scott Stuewe, DirectTrust president and CEO, in a statement. “To be useful as a mechanism for assembling a longitudinal health record, a system also needs to enable access to the locations where records are available for the individual. DirectTrust is ideally suited to be leading this effort. We are at the intersection of identity-assurance and health information exchange, as well as our members represent the actors that would have to implement such a solution. This effort dovetails well with our focus on consumer credentials – it adds identifiers to federated identity topics already being addressed in collaboration with the CARIN Alliance.”
Lisa Bari, CEO of Civitas Networks for Health, issued a statement, saying: “Civitas’ regional and statewide HIE members have developed significant expertise in patient matching over the past decade out of necessity, but they are limited by the bounds of probabilistic matching. Developing a potentially more comprehensive and privacy-enhancing record locator service to improve matching efforts aligns well with Civitas’ goals to support trusted, comprehensive health information exchange in the US. We are pleased that our partners and members at DirectTrust are leading the way."
DirectTrust is seeking Consensus Body members from healthcare, government, healthcare payer, consumer and general interest, information technology, and interoperability and systems integration sectors. Those interested in joining the PEHRLS Ecosystem Consensus Body are asked to contact [email protected].
