Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins and 20 others pledge to join TEFCA, prioritize interoperability
FIERCE Healthcare 5/22/2023
Epic announced the first cohort of health systems pledging to join the national health information-sharing network dubbed the Trusted Exchange Framework and the Common Agreement (TEFCA). Epic is a member of the inaugural group of six prospective Qualified Health Information Networks (QHINs) that were recognized by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) earlier this year. Today, Epic announced that 20 health systems along with health tech company KeyCare and health information exchange OCHIN will be joining TEFCA with the goal of increasing interoperability in healthcare.
Pledging Organizations
- Alameda Health System
- Baptist Health (FL)
- Baptist Health (KY)
- BJC HealthCare and Washington University School of Medicine
- Cedars-Sinai
- Children’s Hospital Colorado
- Contra Costa Health
- Guthrie
- Hawaii Pacific Health
- Houston Methodist
- Johns Hopkins Medicine
- Kaiser Permanente
- KeyCare
- Legacy Health
- Mayo Clinic
- MetroHealth
- Michigan Medicine
- Mount Sinai Health System
- NYU Langone Health
- OCHIN
- Pediatric Physicians’ Organization at Children’s (PPOC)
- Rush University Medical Center
- Stanford Health Care
- UC Davis Health
- University of Miami Health System
- Weill Cornell Medicine
- Yale New Haven Health
“By joining TEFCA, these health systems reaffirm their ongoing commitment to improving patient care by advancing health information exchange,” Matt Doyle, interoperability software development lead at Epic, said in a press release. “Our plan is to deliver software this year that will help our customers to be among the initial participants in TEFCA, and we’re optimistic that nearly all of the 2,000 hospitals and 600,000 clinicians that use Epic across the U.S. will participate.”
TEFCA
TEFCA is a public-private partnership mandated by the 21st Century Cures Act in 2016. Health systems that will be joining the framework via Epic range from large hospitals to safety net providers. These provider organizations currently use Epic’s interoperability tools to improve information sharing, the company said. The voluntary TEFCA framework is nonbinding and establishes a core set of data available for secure, fruitful exchange. Epic is joined by five other organizations, including CommonWell Health Alliance and eHealth Exchange, that have volunteered to take the steps to become QHINs.
