The eHealth Exchange, one of the oldest and largest health information networks in the country, has announced new upgrades and additions to its technology platform, including that it will soon complete the implementation of its Carequality interoperability framework.
The goal, according to officials of the organization, is to reduce information sharing expense, further expand its national reach and support innovative capabilities such as a national record locator service.
The eHealth Exchange is well-known as the primary way the federal government shares data between agencies and with the private sector, and now, its growing network, which is working in 75 percent of all U.S. hospitals, is leveraged by more than 30 electronic health record (EHR) technologies and 59 regional or state health information exchanges (HIEs). In all, the eHealth Exchange supports secure exchange of the records of more than 120 million patients, officials note.
As announced today, the eHealth Exchange will integrate its FHIR healthcare directory with InterSystems solutions, aiming to enable the network to enhance its patient-centric services while also completing its implementation of the Carequality interoperability framework, which is used by an estimated 600,000 physicians to share data today across and among networks.
Last year, eHealth Exchange announced plans to become a member and implementer of Carequality, thereby extending the eHealth Exchange’s reach to all other networks that also participate in the Carequality health data sharing framework. The Sequoia Project, which once managed both the eHealth Exchange and Carequality together, recently shifted its corporate structure to more clearly delineate two distinct subsidiaries; one for eHealth Exchange and one for Carequality.
“With a single connection to the eHealth Exchange, our participants will be able to securely exchange patient information not only within our large national network, but also with other Carequality-enabled networks such as athenahealth, CommonWell Health Alliance, Epic, and Surescripts,” said Jay Nakashima, executive director of eHealth Exchange. “A one-gateway solution for a network of our size will dramatically increase connectivity for the entire country while saving millions of dollars in IT infrastructure and effort for our participants and their future exchange partners.”
