Epic Nexus connects 625 hospitals to TEFCA
Epic marks one year of connecting hospitals since joining the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement and pledges to continue connecting healthcare system customers under universal interoperability.
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT
Epic built its electronic health record-based interoperability network before TEFCA and worked with others to create nationwide sharing frameworks, including Carequality.
Since TEFCA went live in December 2023, the EHR giant has onboarded 625 hospitals in 12 months.
“Epic’s customers are quickly connecting to TEFCA,” Rob Klootwyk, Epic’s director of interoperability, noted in a statement Monday.
“It is estimated that before TEFCA, 30% of US hospitals were unable to exchange electronic health information,” added Dr. David Kaelber, Chief Health Information Officer of MetroHealth System.
“TEFCA provides a universal on-ramp for these organizations, many in rural and underserved communities, to connect.”
THE BIG TREND
The U.S. Health and Human Services approved Epic, eHealth Exchange, CommonWell, Health Gorilla, Kno2 and KONZA National Network in early 2023 as the first qualified health information networks under TEFCA.
QHINs, authorized by the 21st Century Cures Act, are the entry points for providers to join TEFCA. Fostering trust is critical for healthcare providers, says Matt Doyle, head of interoperability software development at Epic. Healthcare IT news after the HHS announcement.
Epic announced it would deploy its first cohort of 24 healthcare systems, including Mount Sinai, Mayo Clinic, Kaiser, Johns Hopkins and Stanford Health, individual hospitals and safety nets, to test the nationwide interoperability framework.
“We are excited about the vision of a simpler, if not a single, gateway to secure, national health information exchange that will benefit all our patients and caregivers,” said Dr. Matthew Eisenberg, associate chief medical information officer at Stanford Health Care. in a statement at the time.
ON THE RECORD
“TEFCA helps MetroHealth and other healthcare systems improve patient care across the country by providing access to a greater breadth and depth of patient electronic health information for a more holistic understanding of a patient,” said Kaelber.
Andrea Fox is editor-in-chief of Healthcare IT News.
Email: afox@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.