Tech & Innovation in Healthcare

Epic, an electronic health record (EHR) company, announced it will join the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA). The company will apply to connect to TEFCA as an inaugural Qualified Health Information Network (QHIN) when the application process opens later this year.

Epic’s community includes nearly 2,000 hospitals and 45,000 clinics — all of which will have the chance to join TEFCA’s nationwide framework. In a collaboration with the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC), The Sequoia Project, and other healthcare organizations, Epic plans to “build consensus around the principles and procedures of TEFCA,” the company wrote in a June 20, 2022 press release.

“Our fundamental goal is to help all patients receive informed, personalized care — regardless of where they go to receive it,” said Dave Fuhrmann, senior vice president of interoperability at Epic.

Epic rolled out their Care Everywhere platform in 2008, and today, more than 10 million patient charts are exchanged every day. The company said that half of those patient chart exchanges involve organizations using different interoperable systems. At the same time, nearly all of Epic’s customers exchange healthcare data through Carequality, which is a nationwide exchange framework with coverage for approximately 70 percent of U.S. hospitals.

“Our customers have led the way with large-scale interoperability through Carequality, and we’re happy to help with the next stage in the evolution of interoperability,” Fuhrmann said.

Learn more about TEFCA in the article “Understand How TEFCA Will Change the Exchange of Health Information” from Tech and Innovation in Healthcare, Volume 2, Issue 3.