It is exciting to see healthcare information exchanges and healthcare organizations across the U.S. ramping up data exchange.

The momentum we see building is real and cuts across many different dimensions. Drivers include state and federal regulatory activity, the rapid maturation of the national data exchange networks such as Commonwell and Carequality, and grant funding for ambulatory provider, EMS and Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMP) connectivity.

For this month, let’s focus on four core topics surrounding the latest updates to the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA) by the ONC.

• What you need to know about TEFCA

• Six key changes to TEFCA Draft 2

• 2019 and 2020 TEFCA timelines

• Zen’s Role within the TEFCA initiatives

What You Need to Know about TEFCA

What is TEFCA? The 21st Century Cures Act calls for the National Coordinator to work with public and private stakeholders to build a national trusted exchange framework for trust policies and practices, and establish a common agreement for exchange between existing health information networks (HIEs, HIOs, etc).

You can think of this as a way to create a “network of networks” across the U.S. This leverages the hard work already done to enable health information exchange, while simplifying the process of connecting across those networks by addressing the major hurdles such as establishing a common set of business rules and a technical framework that defines the various ways that data may be exchanged.

Click here to read an excellent summary presentation from the ONC on TEFCA.

Six Changes to TEFCA Draft 2

Here are the key changes in TEFCA Draft 2:

1. The permitted exchange “purposes” were updated to include a subset of payment and healthcare operations purposes, as defined in HIPAA. The overall list of exchange purposes now include: Treatment, Public Health, Utilization Review, Business Planning and Development, Quality Assessment and Improvement, Benefits Determination and Individual Access Services. Slides 23 and 24 from the ONC’s User Guide for Understanding TEFCA provide a more thorough description of each purpose.

Important TEFCA Milestones & Timelines

 June 2019

Important TEFCA Milestones & Timelines

We expect that TEFCA will add significant momentum to an already rapidly expanding need to exchange data across healthcare communities. That’s exciting. However, as the clinical use-cases grow and massive amounts of data becomes available, it will become even more important to focus on high-quality data acquisition, enforce very high data quality standards, and be prepared to support the increased volume. That’s where we fit in.

For those of you who haven’t worked with us yet, here’s a little background. Zen was founded to address the industry-wide problem of scaling high volume health data exchange. We’ve designed integration as a service tools and solutions to simplify the interoperability challenges of today and in anticipation of broader data exchange requirements of tomorrow. Initiatives like TEFCA and Promoting Interoperability programs are two of the core reasons we developed our Zen Gemini Integration Platform, Stargate Connectivity Gateway, and Zen Gravity Data Repository solutions.

We also keep our fingers on the pulse of these industry changes and advancements through our active participation in industry workgroups which are busy collaborating on best practices for healthcare interoperability every day.

Try our Free 15-Minute Engineering Consult

Join us by keeping up on all things interoperability on the Zen Healthcare IT blog. You may also reach out to our interoperability engineers and strategists if you have questions about TEFCA, data quality, clinical data exchange, Carequality and eHealth Exchange. You can pick the day and time for your free 15-minute consult here.

We are honored to be working with so many incredible organizations.

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