FHA flexes connectivity in HIMSS demonstrations

By Patty Enrado, Senior Editor, Healthcare IT News

ATLANTA -- The Federal Health Architecture (FHA) community showed its muscle here, demonstrating 23 different applications involving 60 organizations currently sharing health data using Nationwide Health Information Network standards and services.

The FHA was a part of an interoperability showcase set up at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society conference this week, which FHA program manager Vish Sankaran said was evidence of the arrival of “a new era of collaboration and innovation."

Sankaran said the interoperability applications were the byproduct of a “year of heavy lifting” by the FHA and its sate and local partners in setting up health information exchange using Connect, a set of tools and policies started by the FHA for sharing health data securely over the Internet.

The current year will be noted for NHIN-level health data sharing across private and public organizations, large and small, he predicted.

Dr. Doug Fridsma, acting director of interoperability and standards for the Office of the National Coordinator, agreed, saying, “we have moved beyond pilots and into the production phase.”

The demos included the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS), which is using the NHIN to enable electronic medical records to follow a patient from emergency treatment centers to evacuation sites, for example.

The NDMS is a federally coordinated system that assists state and local authorities respond to disasters.

The Social Security Administration (SSA) and Richmond, Va.-based HIE MedVirginia demonstrated the transmital of health records of people applying for disability benefits from their local physician's office to the SSA. The SSA recently announced a set of new 15 partners with which it will begin to set up similar health information exchange systems.

In another booth, the University of Virginia and the Federal Communications Commission discussed a partnership to ensure rural healthcare markets have the appropriate broadband capability to support health information exchange.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid was also represented, showing how it is moving Medicaid data throughout the state of Minnesota via the Community Health Information Collaborative, a Minnesota HIE.

Many of the organizations are signatories to a Data Use and Reciprocal Support Agreement (DURSA), an agreement between HIE partners on  various legal and practical policies involved in health information sharing.

With the policy and trust framework in place, ONC is expecting an uptick in the use of the Connect software and the Connect software, Fridsma said.

"Once you've laid a lot of the foundation, you start to get critical mass for health information exchange," he said.

"The end goal for all these organizations participating in the Interoperability Showcase is interoperability," added Sankaran. There are different methods, timelines and speed to market, he said, but the bottom line, he said, is meeting that goal.

For FHA, Sankaran said, "Connect is a success."