The different business models for health information exchange governance are taking shape, and make "trust" a priority, according to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT's latest update on its continuing efforts to support HIE.
The update by ONC officials and others, conducted via a webinar hosted by the National eHealth Collaborative (NeHC) on Sept. 17, noted that ONC heard "loud and clear" from responses to its request for information (RFI) on the subject that stakeholders wanted the government to wait before taking a regulatory approach to HIE governance. ONC instead focused on creating a National HIE Governance Forum where stakeholders could partner with one another and with ONC to identify and share emerging and promising approaches and challenges in a collaborative environment.
The forum is the "heart of our response" to the RFI, said Jodi Daniel, director of ONC's office of policy and planning.
The forum, which launched this past spring, has several work products in the pipeline, including deliverables pertaining to privacy and security, according to Kate Berry, NeHC CEO. "ONC's theme today is trust," she said.
For instance, much of the work on both centralized and federated HIE governance models, as well as the DirectTrust initiative center around trust elements, such as privacy and security obligations, identification and authentication of users and breach notification obligations. These are being taken into account as the different HIEs forge ahead and ramp up.
"We're in the process of laying cable, the infrastructure for HIEs so that they're affordable, easy to use and secure," David Kibbe, executive director of DirectTrust said. "As it grows we'll be ready for it."
To learn more:
- access information on the webinar