Carequality Interoperability Framework Helps Boost Patient Record Sharing
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
EHR vendors spurring exchange of healthcare data across networks.
A group of vendors are using Carequality Interoperability Framework to help boost nationwide health data sharing between different EHR systems, record locator service (RLS), and health information exchanges (HIEs). Leveraging a central provider directory and common set of rules, providers using athenahealth, eClinicalWorks, Epic, HIETexas, NextGen, and Surescripts at select sites can now engage in the exchange of health information with other providers, according to a press release.
“Interoperability between medical providers across organizations and EHR technologies is essential for improving healthcare delivery,” said Tushar Malhotra, Integration Lead for eClinicalWorks. “eClinicalWorks is committed to providing easy interoperability to our customers. Working with Carequality has been a good experience, with both our clients and their patients benefitting from an enhanced exchange of pertinent health information, elevating care delivery.”
The Carequality Interoperability Framework provides the necessary legal terms, policy requirements, technical specifications, and governance processes needed to enable interoperability between and among the many healthcare data sharing networks and programs serving diverse user communities nationwide. Published in December 2015, it already has been adopted by 13 pioneering health organizations with more networks and health organizations in various stages of adoption and implementation planning.
“It’s not a trial, it’s not a pilot. We’re up and running — it’s operational and it works,” said Dave Cassel, who heads the public-private collaborative under the Sequoia Project umbrella, according to Healthcare IT News. “Physicians and clinicians are actively getting records under the Carequality framework.”
Roll-out of the Framework continues with more than 3,000 clinics and 200 hospitals now using the platform to share health data. Once fully implemented, the program will include healthcare’s largest ambulatory vendors, the largest e-prescribing vendor, and one-third of the inpatient market, according to a Carequality statement.
“Having a nationwide interoperability framework that unites disparate networks to enable their clients to communicate, like cell phone carriers in the telecommunications industry, marks an important step forward for healthcare,” the Carequality statement read. “With the transient nature of patients, a single health IT network can’t address all of the needs of its patients, physicians, hospitals, pharmacies, and other healthcare organizations within that network’s reach.”
That’s where the collective Carequality infrastructure comes into play. Guided by a common set of rules and well-defined technical specifications, it allows individual networks to communicate and share data easily, despite geographic location or specific technology solution. “Providers using our network-enabled services expect us to constantly improve their connection to each other and those they share patients with because we don’t succeed unless they can effectively coordinate care,” said John Voith, Director of Interoperability at athenahealth. “Carequality is helping us to advance this work with our providers.”
“The Carequality Framework is a testament to healthcare vendors’ commitment toward making seamless interoperability a reality for patients and providers,” says Dave Fuhrmann, Vice President of Interoperability for Epic. “Shared rules and guidelines are going to make it possible for all of us to dramatically increase the number of connections we have across systems to make care safer and more efficient.”