The Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI) this week announced the creation of a workgroup focused on genomic data exchange and incorporating genomic data into the U.S. healthcare system.
WEDI also announced the appointment of three co-chairs to lead the group as it evaluates and outlines a common industry vision for genomic data in healthcare.
Katherine Johansen Taber, Ph.D., director of the American Medical Association’s Personalized Medicine Program; Adam Scott, vice president of consumer clinical strategy at Aetna; and Grant Wood, senior IT strategist for Intermountain Healthcare’s Clinical Genetics Institute will serve as co-chairs for the WEDI Genomic Data Exchange Workgroup.
“With all of the latest advances in genomic sequencing, profiling, testing and phenotyping, the healthcare industry is quickly entering a completely new era of personalized medicine. This progress will require more advanced health information technology, capable of rapidly accessing, exchanging and processing information to fully inform diagnostic, treatment and prevention decisions at the point of care,” Devin Jopp, Ed.D, president and CEO of WEDI, said in a statement. “It is important that WEDI, as the leading authority on health IT and health information exchange, bring this issue to the forefront and investigate not only how to build a national infrastructure to support this genomic data, but how to create seamless workflows to enhance the delivery and coordination of care.”
The newly formed Workgroup emerged from an initial investigation into a wide range of genomic information exchange issues – including genomic data formats, exchange, privacy controls, security, storage, management, governance, care coordination and payer-provider collaboration – from the preliminary taskforce in the first quarter of 2015.
The preliminary taskforce developed and just released a report on its initial findings, “Issues and Trends in Electronic Genomic Information Exchange,” which spurred the creation of the Genomic Data Exchange Workgroup and identifies specific recommendations for areas of further focus for the new Workgroup within the three domains of Data Access and Integration, Data Exchange and Data Governance.
