EHR provider Epic plans to require all of its customers to participate in TEFCA by the end of 2024. The target for go-live is the end of 2025.
In a press release, the EHR vendor stated that many customers have already signed up to join TEFCA through Epic Nexus, the Qualified Health Information Network (QHIN).
TEFCA is a federal initiative to improve interoperability between healthcare providers and payers through Network of networks Approach.
In addition to Epic’s announcement, the Carequality interoperability network has announced plans to work with TEFCA.
With the aim of future convergence of the two frameworks, Carequality aligns its policies with TEFCA, including the following:
- Use existing Carequality policies to address community concerns about required responses to requests.
- Promote ongoing review and adoption of policy changes to align with TEFCA’s approach to the definition of treatment.
- Establish stronger directory integrity controls.
- Integrating TEFCA delegate guidelines into Carequality’s existing on-behalf-of policies to increase transparency and controls.
“We welcome Carequality’s recently announced plan to align with TEFCA,” Epic representatives said in a press release. “For example, Carequality’s use cases will reflect the definitions used in TEFCA, and new delegate guidelines will allow healthcare organizations to review and approve organizations requesting records on their behalf, just as they can under TEFCA.”
Epic said it will continue to support customer connectivity through Carequality during the transition to ensure healthcare interoperability.
The Carequality network includes 100% participation from Epic customers. Overall, the framework connects more than 70% of U.S. hospitals, over 50,000 clinics, and more than 600,000 care providers.
“TEFCA is the country’s best opportunity to unlock the remaining 30 percent of U.S. hospitals and build trust between data-sharing networks and care organizations,” Epic said in a statement.
Hannah Nelson has been covering news related to health information technology and health data interoperability since 2020.
