In the most recent of what has been a series of policy releases these past few months, the Sequoia Project on Thursday published some important final documents on the road to TEFCA: Common Agreement standard operating procedures and the application form for Qualified Health Information Network participation.
With the new releases, ONC’s recognized coordinating entity for the Trusted Exchange and Common Agreement is “moving into the operational phase of TEFCA,” said Mariann Yeager, CEO of the Sequoia Project, in a statement.
“Since the release of the Common Agreement in January 2022, we’ve been working toward hitting our promised timelines while seeking input from the community. The feedback we received has been invaluable as we worked toward finalizing the SOPs and application.”
Drafts of these documents were released earlier this summer for stakeholder feedback, and both Sequoia and ONC have modified and updated the documents in response. They are available on the RCE website:
Qualified Health Information Network Application.
Qualified Health Information Network Onboarding & Designation SOP.
Means To Demonstrate U.S. Ownership and Control of a QHIN SOP.
Means To Demonstrate U.S. Ownership and Control of a QHIN SOP Questionnaire.
The Sequoia Project is aiming to open the QHIN application portal on Monday, October 3, 2022.
Potential QHINs may notify the group of their intent to apply, as instructed in the QHIN Onboarding & Designation SOP. Sequoia Project will evaluate applications between now and October to ensure that prospective QHINs meet the designation criteria. It will announce the initial set of QHINs together, with more later designated on a rolling basis.
“The release of the final QHIN Application and related documents is a major milestone for TEFCA. We have received tremendous stakeholder input for the crucial task of getting the policy and related requirements correct,” said National Coordinator for Health IT Micky Tripathi in a statement.
“We are very excited about the market interest expressed in TEFCA, and now invite eligible organizations to apply to become QHINs and help achieve the goal of universal network interoperability across the country,” he said.
Seeking feedback on data usability
This week the Sequoia Project, also announced the release of its Data Usability Workgroup Implementation Guide, Version 0.1 – and is seeking public feedback.
This guide covers the identified priority use cases that can be readily adopted within health information exchange vendors, implementers, networks, governance frameworks and testing programs. Feedback may be submitted via the Sequoia Project website through October 14.
The DUWG – part of the Sequoia Project’s Interoperability Matters initiative – was first launched in October 2020 to develop “specific and pragmatic implementation guidance on clinical content for healthcare stakeholders to facilitate health information exchange,” according to the group.
Stakeholders participate in the DUWG to help ensure comprehensive and inclusive guidance to improve the utility and usability of healthcare data among communities and networks.
“The Data Usability Workgroup consists of members from the broader healthcare and health IT community,” said Mariann Yeager, chief executive officer of The Sequoia Project. “This implementation guide is a collaborative effort of the workgroup, and we are thrilled to share it with the community for feedback.”
Twitter: @MikeMiliardHITN
Email the writer: [email protected]
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS publication.
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