The healthcare industry is making strides towards achieving interoperability, with Qualified Health Information Networks (QHINs) playing a crucial role in advancing this goal. These networks, established under the federal Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA), allow healthcare organizations to share information securely with other entities, addressing the challenge of fragmented health data.
Bob Watson, executive chairman of Health Gorilla, a QHIN, emphasizes the importance of QHINs in improving care coordination and reducing administrative burdens caused by the lack of interoperability. By establishing a standardized framework for health information exchange, QHINs act as trusted intermediaries connecting different networks and enabling seamless data flow for authorized entities.
TEFCA expands the exchange of health information beyond treatment purposes to include individual access services, public health exchange, healthcare operations, payment, public benefits determination, and research. Organizations must meet stringent federal requirements to become QHINs, demonstrating robust technical and security capabilities to securely exchange health information.
Health Gorilla utilizes a secure cloud-based infrastructure to operate its network, offering a layer of APIs supporting Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) and HL7 V3 XCA for data exchange. The platform includes a record locator service, master patient index, data orchestration, processing, and storage capabilities to manage queries efficiently across sources and compile comprehensive patient-centric summaries.
In a typical hospital setting, when a patient arrives at the emergency department, the hospital’s electronic health record system initiates a request for the patient’s records through secure API calls to the QHIN platform. The platform verifies the requestor’s authorization, retrieves data from connected QHINs, and sends a consolidated, secure data package back to the hospital’s EHR system for providers to access within their interface, facilitating better care delivery.
Since going live as a QHIN, Health Gorilla has experienced significant query volume growth and successful data exchanges, showcasing increased connectivity and trust within the network. The platform has reduced the time it takes for healthcare providers to access patient information, leading to faster decision-making and improved patient care. Client feedback highlights reductions in manual workloads, fewer errors, and improved automation of data retrieval, demonstrating the positive impact of QHINs on solving interoperability challenges.
Overall, QHINs are instrumental in promoting seamless data exchange in healthcare, fostering collaboration among healthcare entities, and enhancing patient care outcomes.
