During this eHealth Exchange deep dive, you’ll discover answers to common questions we get all the time. 

1.  Is connecting to eHealth Exchange right for me?

2.  Who are the participants in eHealth Exchange?

3.  What are the use-cases for data exchange in eHealth Exchange?

4.  How do you apply and what are the participation costs?

5. If we connect to eHealth Exchange, do we have to share information with everyone on the network?

6. What key decisions points should I keep in mind when determining if eHealth Exchange is right for me?

Click the video below to begin the session. 

Session Summary – eHealth Exchange Deep Dive, a National Trusted Exchange Network

Welcome to session two of our National Trusted Exchange Networks video series. This session is a deep dive into eHealth Exchange to help you determine if connecting to eHealth Exchange is right for you.

In our first video in this series, we spoke about the evolution of the National Trusted Exchange Networks overtime – from the oldest network which is eHealth Exchange, to Commonwell, Carequality, and even recent changes to eHealth Exchange in 2018 and 2019. eHealth Exchange is now a part of the big three national networks – a collaboration of networks of networks with national scale and coverage.

Is eHealth Exchange connectivity right for me?

The eHealth Exchange website – www.eHealthExchange.org – is the best place for you to go to learn about the details. The website changes frequently so we encourage you to check it often. Our team at Zen can also provide guidance and answer questions about eHealth Exchange. Feel free to reach out.

Who are the participants in eHealth Exchange?

To learn more about eHealth Exchange participants, navigate on their website to the participant page. It does a nice job of showing the history and growth of the participants, with 2020 hitting an all-time record high, the highest total participation numbers since 2013.

This page will allow you to browse through all the participants or look up specific participants. When you are investigating the participant, you will have helpful information available to you including the states with locations for the participants, specific facilities involved, and a helpful notes area which will provide information on whether or not the participating organization is using the hub. The hub is a new technology that simply makes it easier to connect with specific end points across the network. Not everyone has moved to the new hub environment, but all new participants will be onboarded to the hub by default. The great thing, however, is that hub and non-hub participants can still exchange information. Our team at Zen can help navigate the steps to make this happen.

Some of the most important participants on the eHealth Exchange are the federal partners – the VA, the Department of Defense, and the Social Security Administration. Each of these organizations have unique onboarding steps and information requirements for connecting. In the video, we discussion some of these variables as well as capabilities like a routine query that is done every day by the VA and DOD called “prefetch” and you’ll need to make sure your technology environment will be able to handle the 150,000 patients during the query period.

What steps do I need to take to get started with eHealth Exchange?

If you believe connectivity to eHealth Exchange is right for you, we recommend you review the application checklist under the “How to Apply” section of their website. This page is really helpful because it pulls together everything you need – for example…

• Who is eligible to join?
• What are the eHealth exchange use-cases?
• How much is this going to cost?

What are the use-cases for eHealth Exchange query and retrieve?

The application process to connect to eHealth Exchange makes it easy for you to understand what use-cases for data exchange are supported and the technical requirements. You will indicate what types of data you want to exchange and how you expect to do that. There are both treatment and non-treatment use-cases. You will see that now FHIR-based exchange capabilities are now available.

Electronic Case Reporting (syndromic surveillance) is one of the latest use-cases we are most excited about. This allows healthcare organizations to push laboratory data (such as COVID-19 test results) for sharing with agencies and registries who need this information from a public health perspective. This is done under a specific set of IHE standards. If your technology platform or vendor does not support this type of data exchange, not to worry. Companies like our team at Zen Healthcare IT will be able to help you bridge the gaps between what your current technology can support and the eHealth Exchange requirements. We are here to help.

How much does eHealth Exchange Connectivity Cost? 

The participation agreement and application provide information about costs. There are several different types of costs.

First, every eHealth Exchange participant must pay one-time onboarding and testing fees. The fees include what is called a Smoke Testing Fee and organizations may have to pay an additional Security Testing fee if they are using non-validated EHR technology. In the video we share details about the actual fees for both.

Second, there are annual fees for eHealth Exchange participation. The annual recurring participation fees can be complicated. New participants will have to pay the annual participation fee which is based either on annual revenues or annual expenses of your organizations. Vendor and payer in this space have fees that can climb quite high in comparison to fees for health systems, HIOs or other providers. Again, see the video details for fee ranges for the annual participation fee, the hub fee, and the optional, but important, hub fee.

What data are participants expected to share?

The participation agreement stipulates that is you are doing an outbound query to eHealth Exchange for treatment purposes, then you have the duty to respond to queries from other entities in the network. You will also have a responsibility to notify the network should you have a breach event.

What factors are important in making your decision to connect?

There are five key decision influencers we discuss in the video.

1. Do you need a fast path to Federal Partners (VA/DOD, Social Security Administration)
2. Are there other identified high value exchange participants that are only available through eHealth Exchange?
3. Does the math work? How do your upfront and recurring costs compare between eHealth Exchange and the other two national networks?
4. Do you need added features like a record locator service to optimize your query success?
5. Do you need a third-party expert, like Zen Healthcare IT, to help with onboarding and filling any existing technology gaps? Don’t assume the technical framework is a blocker for any option.

Ready for Your Next Session?

(new sessions coming soon)

Session 5

TEFCA’s Potential

Future Impact

(coming soon)