We previously shared ONC’s big QHIN announcement which shared the names of five officially designated QHINs as part of TEFCA:
No doubt, the timing of this announcement was planned to coincide with the ONC Annual Meeting in Washington DC. It was Healthcare IT Today’s first time attending the ONC Annual Meeting despite multiple years of FOMO for not attending. This year I’m glad I finally made it happen since we were able to hop on video with all of the officially designated QHINs to get their reaction on the announcement. Plus, we were able to talk with the Recognized Coordinating Entity (RCE), The Sequoia Project, who has been doing the hard work of reviewing, vetting, and approving the QHINs. And for good measure, we were also able to talk to CommonWell Health Alliance and Surescripts who are both working through the QHIN application process and should both be QHINs shortly.
Check out the video below to see these organizations reaction to becoming a QHIN and the announcement of the officially designated QHINs. Plus, we also ask them all to share something that people don’t understand about QHINs.
In the world of interoperability, the announcement of the QHINs and that they’re already starting to share records is a big deal. No doubt there was a palpable excitement about the QHINs being announced and what that’s going to facilitate when it comes to a national interoperability network.
Many argue that this type of data sharing was already happening in healthcare and other sharing is happening that QHINs don’t support. So, they argue that the QHIN isn’t really that big of a deal. They’re right in many ways when it comes to the health data sharing that’s already occurring and the limitations for what QHINs are going to share to start.
QHINs on their own aren’t going to full solve the data sharing problem. However, what makes QHINs different in my view is that it’s what many of the health data sharing networks were trying to accomplish without regulatory and government backing. QHINs now have that government and regulatory backing which makes a big difference. Plus, credit to Micky Tripathi and ONC for doing the hard work of bringing the CDC, FDA, CMS, and other government healthcare organizations on board with QHINs as well.
Of course, the proof is really in the pudding. The good news is that QHINs are now live and we can see how they’re really going to be used. Although, as one person I talked with noted, if the QHINs are done right, doctors won’t know they’re using a QHIN at all. They’ll just have the data they need and not realize how they got it.
