CommonWell Health Alliance (@CommonWell) announced the rollout of its connection to the Carequality Framework, which is now Generally Available to CommonWell members and will increase health IT connectivity nationwide. The connection will allow CommonWell- and Carequality-enabled health care providers, through some of the industry’s largest participating EHR vendors, to connect and bilaterally exchange health data to improve care coordination and delivery.
“We are proud to break down yet another barrier to interoperability by making this much-anticipated connection available to our members and their clients,” said Jitin Asnaani, CommonWell Health Alliance executive director. “This increased connectivity will serve to empower providers with access to patient health data critical to their health care decision-making.”
Leveraging the technological infrastructure built by CommonWell service provider Change Healthcare, members Cerner and Greenway Health successfully completed a focused rollout of the connection with a handful of their provider clients, who have been exchanging data daily with Carequality-enabled providers. Since the connection went live in July, CommonWell-enabled providers have bilaterally exchanged more than 200,000 documents with Carequality-enabled providers locally and nationwide.
During the focused rollout, providers noted that this exchange increases ease of access to patient records from previous medical encounters and provides a foundation for helping to improve the delivery of patient care.
“The CommonWell-Carequality connection provides us the opportunity to directly access our patients’ records from the tertiary care centers in our region,” said Dr. Michael Donnenwerth, podiatry specialist at Winona Health, a Cerner client located in Winona, Minn. “We are now able to integrate new medications and problems into our EHR seamlessly, which provides the most accurate and up-to-date information possible. This flow of information has not only connected our medical records, but it has allowed us to truly provide better care as the ambiguity of outside doctor visits has been virtually eliminated.”
“Thanks to the CommonWell-Carequality connection, our patients can have access to their medical records regardless of the EHR a health care facility uses,” said David Callecod, president and CEO of Lafayette General Health, a Cerner client located in Lafayette, La. “When data is made readily available, providers can make diagnostic and treatment decisions more quickly, and patients can recover sooner. Better data means better communication with our patients and providers, better care and better outcomes. This is a very powerful tool!”
This announcement marks a significant milestone on the path to achieving true nationwide health IT interoperability, advancing the vision of the Alliance to make health data available to individuals and providers regardless of where care occurs. Connecting some of the nation’s largest vendors, the CommonWell-Carequality connection will offer valuable patient insights to providers as they strive to deliver the best care possible to their patients.
“Now that we’re able to get patient information across disparate providers through the CommonWell-Carequality Connection, I think it will reduce hospital readmissions,” said Roneisha Ward, director of Health IT at Carolina Family Health Centers, a Greenway Health client with locations throughout North Carolina. “By knowing what was done on the other end, we aren’t duplicating work in labs and referrals and patients don’t have to spend lots of time and money outside of the clinic. It’s a win-win for the patient, the organization and the hospitals.”
With the connection officially in production, additional CommonWell members, including Brightree, Evident and MEDITECH, are in the process of subscribing to the connection and taking it live with their provider clients.
More information on the connection, including answers to frequently asked questions, are available in our Facts section.
About CommonWell Health Alliance
CommonWell Health Alliance is a not-for-profit trade association of health care and technology organizations working together to create universal access to health data nationwide. CommonWell members represent more than 20 care settings, including market leaders and technology innovators in acute, ambulatory and post-acute care, patient portals, imaging, population health, emergency services and more. CommonWell and its members are committed to the belief that provider access to health data must be built into information technologies at a reasonable cost for use by a broad range of health care providers and the populations and people they serve.