“The health IT industry cheered on Tuesday when the Biden administration released a final draft of a framework for nationwide data exchange after an extended stint in regulatory purgatory, with the goal of creating a simple and standard connectivity infrastructure for providers, plans, patients and public health agencies in the U.S.”
“But the future of that road map, called the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement, hinges largely around adoption.”
“TEFCA is entirely voluntary, and will succeed or fail wholly depending on industry buy-in — historically, not a good prospect for a piece of health IT regulation — though experts note the competitive advantages to joining TEFCA could be a significant motivator…”
“The goal of TEFCA is to get rid of individual legal agreements between health information networks, health plans, providers and other entities by instituting one common agreement that qualified networks and their participants sign onto, paring back on administrative burden. The framework standardizes the operational side of data exchange, while raising the privacy and security bar for entities that want to be certified as qualified health information networks (QHINs), groups of organizations that agree to the same data-sharing infrastructure.”
“TEFCA will bolster other interoperability regulations from CMS and ONC, and should cut down on debates over the operational side of interoperability, experts say, while having the benefit of leaning heavily on existing law, including the HIPAA privacy legislation…” Read the full article here.
Source: The future of ONC’s interoperability framework hinges on adoption. But the agency — and industry — is optimistic – By Rebecca Pifer, January 21, 2022. Healthcare Dive.
