Coalition Defines EHR to HIE Data Sharing Standards

A band of U.S. states and technology vendors came together to create technical specifications that enable EHRs to feed into HIEs. The specifications, agreed upon Tuesday, “leverage existing HL7 standards, technical frameworks from IHE International, and HIE implementations,” the group explained in a prepared statement.

Two use cases concern “the detailed data and metadata specification for a compliant Continuity of Care Document,” the working group noted, explaining that the first, Statewide Send and Receive Patient Record Exchange, enables health records to be encrypted, then sent over the Internet, whereas the second use case, Statewide Patient Data Inquiry Service, is what allows clinicians to query an HIE for patient data. These specs, the working group added, sync with Beacon Community guidelines for purposes of reporting to ONC...