Health Information Exchange (HIE)

State and regional HIEs have the deep experience necessary to improve interoperability – which is about more than just moving patient data from one point to another, says John Kansky, president and CEO of the Indiana Health Information Exchange.

However, blockchain technology is still in its infancy, so expectations should be managed accordingly, says Dr. Abdullah Albeyatti, CEO and co-founder at Medicalchain.

Three interoperability experts – from Boston Children’s Hospital, Holon Solutions and Payformance Solutions – discuss the most important tactics to employ when first working with interoperability technologies and standards.

The EDie software will enable members of the Kentucky Hospital Association to coordinate care with each other, and with skilled nursing facilities and other clinics statewide. It could also offer a valuable tool to help fight the opioid crisis.

The company has signed a new six-year deal to provide clinical data exchange capabilities, such as patient ID, record locator services and document retrieval.

HIMSS, Sequoia Project and others weigh in on Draft 2 of the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement, urging caution that it not disrupt existing HIE processes.

Alexander Berler, director for consulting services at Gnomon Informatics SA, looks at a new initiative that can help put the patient at the centre of healthcare in Europe.

If it makes it through the Senate and the president, the amendment to HR 2740 could finally clear the way for big progress in matching the right data to the right patients.

In its comments on the agencies' interoperability rules, HIMSS said FHIR v.4 should be required for certification – but cautioned against too broad a definition of EHI and said to slow requirements for payer trusted exchange network participation.

The RESTful application programming interface can support HL7, CCDA, RDBMS, CSV and X12 for data extraction and aggregation into a standardized format.