At HIMSS, we sat down to talk with CommonWell Health Alliance to learn about their passion for interoperability and some of the latest happenings with the CommonWell community. This included an update on CommonWell’s new technical service provider, ELLKAY and their recent designation by the federal government as a Qualified Health Information Network (QHIN).
CommonWell was formed 11 years ago from a consortium of major EHR vendors to carry out the mandate for interoperable data exchange in the HITECH and Affordable Care Acts. As Executive Director Paul L Wilder points out, they are a “switchboard” through which clients can find patient data, but CommonWell doesn’t maintain any patient data itself (unlike, for instance, many health information exchanges).
Their membership and clientele have expanded in variety as well as numbers. Originally aimed at health care providers, they have championed the right of patients to get access to data, and now are working also with payers, public health agencies, pharmacies, and labs. CommonWell has been working with some of these clients to look at innovative data workflows. For instance, pharmacies may have data on patients that could help doctors prescribe more accurately.
Along with these important updates, we also asked Liz Buckle, Director of Product at CommonWell Health Alliance, to talk about their work on CommonWell 2.0 and their journey to TEFCA. Plus, Buckle shares with us a bit about how they’re approaching FHIR and what role that’s going to play for CommonWell going forward.
If you’re interested in healthcare interoperability check out this video where Buckle and Wilder discuss some of the capabilities of the CommonWell platform, AI, lessons from the Change Healthcare cyberattack, the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA), and their FHIR implementation guide.
Learn more about CommonWell Health Alliance: https://www.commonwellalliance.org/
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