To align with the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement, the Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission (EHNAC), a nonprofit standards development organization and accrediting body, is working with other organizations to establish a new Trusted Exchange Accreditation Program (TEAP).
EHNAC said it is collaborating on TEAP with WEDI, SAFE-BioPharma Association LLC, the eHealth Initiative, and the eP3 Foundation.
The new accreditation program will leverage existing industry-wide identity verification, authentication, and privacy/security frameworks and best practices in use across the ecosystem and align with many national efforts including the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology’s efforts to endorse the 21st Century Cures Act and other federal requirements including TEFCA, which was created to improve data exchange and enable interoperability across different health information networks (HINs).
With the goal of providing third-party accreditation for healthcare stakeholders including HINs, health information exchanges (HIEs), accountable care organizations (ACOs), data registries, payers, providers, vendors and others, this new accreditation program will focus on assuring identify verification and authentication of stakeholders that will utilize the “digital exchange highway” as well as support blockchain, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), cloud, and other underlying enabling technologies.
“We invite the healthcare industry to join us in working together to establish this important new accreditation program that will continue the much-needed focus on interoperability as well as assure a trusted environment where privacy and security requirements are maintained,” said EHNAC Executive Director Lee Barrett, in a prepared statement. “The formation of this industry collaboration leveraging many of the excellent frameworks and best practices already deployed is an important first step in making this a reality.”
Next steps include forming a steering committee that will be comprised of a group of 10 to 15 public and private healthcare stakeholders across a wide range of sectors and specialties.
