What you should know:
– The Office of the National Health Informatics Coordinator (ONC) and its recognized coordinating entity (RCE), The Sequoia Project, published the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA), creating the basic legal and technical requirements that they will allow a security, exchange of information at national level between different health entities, completing a critical requirement of the Law of cures of the 21st century.
– The launch of TEFCA today marks the beginning of the implementation phase. Entities may soon apply to be designated as QHIN. These QHINs will connect with each other and allow their participants (i.e., health care providers, payers, public health agencies) to participate in the exchange of health information across the country.
Principles and components of TEFCA
The framework for the exchange of trust is a set of non-binding but fundamental principles for the exchange of health information, and the common agreement is a contract that advances the following principles:
(1) Normalization
(2) Openness and transparency
(3) Cooperation and non-discrimination
(4) Privacy, security and safety
(5) Access
(6) Equity
(7) Public Health.
The Common Understanding establishes the technical infrastructure model and the government approach for the different health information networks and their users to securely share clinical information among themselves, all under commonly agreed traffic rules. . This flexible structure allows stakeholders, such as health information networks, outpatient practices, hospitals, health centers, federal government agencies, public health agencies, and payers, to benefit from TEFCA through better access to health information. Health. People will also be able to benefit from TEFCA and seek access to their health information through entities that offer individual access services.
The TEFCA Health Level Seven (HL7®) Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resource (FHIR®) Roadmap (TEFCA FHIR Roadmap) is also available today, describing how TEFCA will accelerate the adoption of FHIR-based exchange in the industry.
The role of the Sequoia project as TEFCA RCE
The Sequoia Project serves as the TEFCA RCE under a cooperation agreement with ONC. NCE is responsible for developing, updating, implementing, and maintaining the common understanding and management of the QHIN technical framework, which is the technical specification of how QHINs connect to each other. In addition, the RCE plays a central role in the designation, incorporation and supervision of QHINs.
Next steps for entities
The RCE will host a series of public participation web seminars icon of disclaimer to provide more information about TEFCA (the first of which will be on January 18 at 12:00 ET). This will help interested entities to participate in or take advantage of TEFCA to fully understand how it works and will help future QHINs decide whether to sign the Joint Agreement. Following an application and review process, the signatory entities may be designated QHIN. The initial QHINs are expected to join the network to start sharing data with each other this year.
“The commissioning of TEFCA within the first year of the Biden Administration was a top priority for ONC and is critical to achieving the goal of the 21st Century Healing Act for an Infrastructure Exchange safe health information across the country, “said Micky Tripathi, Ph.D., national health coordinator. Information technology. “Simplified nationwide connectivity for providers, health plans, people and public health is finally within reach. We are excited to help the industry reap the benefits of TEFCA as soon as possible.”
