The Sequoia Project, is a non-profit dedicated to solving health IT interoperability for the public good. Under their management, two separate healthcare data exchange networks have evolved, eHealth Exchange and Carequality. eHealth Exchange includes hospitals, HIE’s, and federal partners such as VA, SSA and DOD. Carequality also includes important EMR vendors such as athenaHealth, Epic, and Cerner, who can’t directly join eHealth Exchange under its governance.

The Sequoia Project made a big announcement last week. Per their press release, the updated (501c3) corporate structure will result in The Sequoia Project having two distinct subsidiaries; one for eHealth Exchange and one for Carequality; and eHealth Exchange intends to become a Carequality Implementer.

This news is important because it provides a path forward for cross-connectivity between the two networks. Individual eHealth Exchange participating organizations can elect to participate with Carequality. If one or more of the eHealth Exchange federal partners opt-in to Carequality that is a big benefit to Carequality members who currently cannot access those federal partners unless they also onboard with eHealth Exchange.  

Health Information exchange is maturing into a network of networks. This approach is efficient because each network evolves to meet the specific needs of its participants. Community networks (like community or state HIEs) support a wide range of data aggregation and data exchange use cases based on the needs of the community.

Zen works with many HIEs and each of them has a unique set of services and approaches, all designed to fit the needs of a specific set of stakeholders. Larger networks like Patient Centered Data Homes (HIE to HIE exchange), Carequality and eHealth Exchange support a more narrow range of use cases but offer a broader range of data sources, including federal partners.

The new corporate structure of The Sequoia Project strengthens healthcare interoperability via network-to-network connectivity. This is essential to creating a truly connected healthcare ecosystem in the U.S.