Dossia Announcement FAQ
The first large scale deployment of personally controlled PHRs was announced last week. Up to 2.5 million PHR accounts will be setup and sponsored based on the Connecting for Health Common Framework developed by the Markle and Robert Wood Johnson foundations. This excellent and relatively short document is a must-read for everyone with an interest in healthcare information technology. Page references below refer to this document.
MedCommons is based on the Markle Foundation Common Framework
MedCommons is a highly scalable and fully standards-based technology that supports all nine technical principles of the Common Framework (p. 14) including #2 - No requirement for a national health ID, #3 - Avoid "rip and replace", #5 - Decentralization and #6 - Federation.
Adding MedCommons to any health IT system enables participation in the NHIN
The Common Framework refers to networks of affiliated health information systems as Sub-Network Organizations (SNO). MedCommons technology provides an organization or an entire SNO with the Inter-SNO Bridge (ISB) and Record Locator Service (RLS) functionality required to participate in the NHIN. This avoids "rip-and-replace" for individual practices as well as large integrated delivery networks.
The only IHE-compliant system with Liberty Alliance standard federation support
Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) is the dominant set of standards and practices to create a SNO. The Common Framework conforms to the general consensus that federation technologies will be mandatory to create a national network of SNOs. The alternatives, including national health IDs, highly centralized systems and uniform policies across all states and stakeholders are widely regarded as impractical in the United States. Along with other Liberty Alliance members, MedCommons has demonstrated federation technology in healthcare at HIMSS 2006. MedCommons is the only vendor scheduled for IHE certification in January 2007 that will be able to bridge the IHE and Liberty Alliance federation standards at HIMSS 2007.
Dossia and MedCommons as Consumer Access Services
The Common Framework describes the role of Consumer Access Services in support of consumers with networked PHRs. The essential elements of authentication, aggregation and information transport will be supported by MedCommons such as to make PHRs accessible and portable among Dossia, MedCommons and other Common Framework compliant SNOs.
What does federation mean to consumers with networked PHRs?
As described in the Common Framework (p.6 ), the Personal Health Technology Council and many consumer groups have endorsed the principle that: "Individuals should have control over whether and how their personally identifiable health information is shared." Federation technology provides the infrastructure for consumers to control sharing of their health information. A consumer that chooses a federation-enabled Consumer Access Service will be able to control sharing with other SNOs that participate in the federation. To a consumer, this means that they can make HIPAA requests for documents distributed across other SNOs and that they can share some or all of their PHR with physicians affiliated with federated SNOs.
How can my organization offer a networked PHR to consumers?
Any hospital, health plan, employer or SNO that wishes to offer networked PHRs to its clients can license MedCommons and enable federation across the NHIN. Of course, it will be up to individual consumers to consent to having their PHR shared outside the institution or SNO that holds the information. Under the Common Framework, your institution will be free to offer cost, policy and performance factors that encourage consumers to aggregate health records in your SNO or to move their PHR to another SNO.
Should I choose a not-for-profit or for-profit Consumer Access Service?
MedCommons licenses technology to both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations as well as offering hosted accounts directly to consumers. As with banks and hospitals different business models evolve different service lines. No matter which kind of service a consumer chooses, they are well advised to choose services that guarantee they can recover substantially all of their data in a standards-based digital format such as PDF, DICOM and CCR.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
