Multiple States and Vendors Agree on Standard Health Data Connectivity Specifications

PR Newswire, November 8, 2011

BEI Commentary: It is good to see that standards are being set for HIEs.  This will increase the speed of their implementation, make processes standardized and bring down the cost of interfaces.

A group of states and vendors focused on eliminating the barriers to sharing electronic health records (EHRs) today issued a set of technical specifications to standardize connections between healthcare providers, health information exchanges (HIEs) and other data-sharing partners. The specifications are now available for the public to view at www.interopwg.org.

The objective of the EHR/HIE Interoperability Workgroup is to define a single set of standardized, easy-to-implement connections to increase the adoption of EHRs and HIE services. The effort leveraged existing published standards for interoperability from the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC). Ultimately, the specifications aim to remove impediments that make it difficult for EHRs to connect to HIEs, including technical specification. Read More