Streamlined Product Testing Process Dramatically Reduces Time and Cost for Interoperable HIE
Healtheway, the non-profit, public-private collaborative that supports the eHealth Exchange, announced that Medicity and Informatics Corporation of America (ICA) are the first of two product vendors to successfully complete eHealth Exchange Product Testing.
The eHealth Exchange Product Testing Program, launched earlier this year, was developed in collaboration with AEGIS to test conformance to the eHealth Exchange specifications and underlying health information exchange (HIE) standards that are required to onboard to the eHealth Exchange network. This testing program uses the Developers Integration Lab (DIL) to enable vendors to test their products and reduce the risk of interoperability issues being introduced into production. Proper testing reduces the cost and burden of fixing interoperability issues and deploying patches. It also significantly reduces the level of effort and cost to organizations that onboard to the eHealth Exchange utilizing an eHealth Exchange Validated product.
According to Mariann Yeager, Healtheway’s executive director, “Healtheway has made significant strides in simplifying testing and onboarding for the eHealth Exchange. To further optimize testing, while continuing to raise the bar for interoperability, we recognized the need to verify that products can interoperate. Using eHealth Exchange Validated products reduces testing in half, and further accelerates onboarding to the eHealth Exchange.”
Medicity was the first vendor to successfully complete the testing program, and in June, Medicity® Network™ v7 was the first product to be deemed eHealth Exchange Validated.
“Given the scale of the eHealth Exchange, Medicity clients have an easy way to quickly use the Medicity Network on the Exchange,” said Rebecca Little, senior vice president at Medicity. “We submitted Medicity Network v7 for automated testing, and the process was fast and straightforward. As it no longer takes months, we can implement our product much sooner, allowing for health data exchange to occur quickly. Our clients can more rapidly join and enjoy the benefits provided by the nationwide interoperability delivered through the eHealth Exchange.”
The second vendor validation also occurred in June with Informatics Corporation of America’s (ICA) successful completion of product testing for its CareAlign 3.0 product.
According to Gary Zegiestowsky, CEO at ICA, “The automated testing process is of incredible benefit to eHealth Exchange participants, and we believe it was important to be one of the first in the country certified with this capability. With this eHealth Exchange Validation, we provide a valuable assurance to our clients that they will be able to successfully use our CareAlign 3.0 on the eHealth Exchange without having to worry about technical obstacles to interoperability. With CareAlign’s validation, our clients will also have an easier road to participant validation and be able to join the eHealth Network more quickly.”
The new, automated testing process is expected to further increase the number of eHealth Exchange participants, which today stands at 62 organizations. These 62 participants represent approximately 1,000 hospitals, 6,000 medical groups and 60 million patients.
Interested organizations can learn more about how to join the eHealth Exchange by visiting the Healtheway website.
About Healtheway
Healtheway is a non-profit organization chartered to advance secure, interoperable nationwide health information exchange (HIE). Healtheway currently supports two initiatives: the eHealth Exchange, a rapidly growing community of exchange partners who share information under a common trust framework and a common set of rules; and Carequality, an industry-driven effort to build consensus among existing health IT data exchange programs regarding technical specifications and best practices (similar to when the banking industry created a nationwide ATM network). Healtheway leads in cross-industry collaboration to develop implementation strategies that enable secure, interoperable nationwide exchange of health information.
About AEGIS
AEGIS.net, Inc. is a CMMI® for Development (v1.3) Maturity Level 3, CMMI® for Services (v1.3) + Service System Development (SSD) Maturity Level 3 rated, ISO 9001:2008 certified small business and premier provider of information technology consulting services to federal civilian, defense and commercial sector clients. AEGIS’s services, delivered by practitioners averaging more than 15 years of experience, include project management, software functional and performance testing, application design/development, independent verification and validation (IV&V), and organizational performance/process improvement. Our domains of expertise include health IT and interoperability, regulatory compliance, finance, human resources and logistics. AEGIS offers the patent-pending Developers Integration Lab (DIL) testing solution for health information exchange gateway, interoperability and compatibility testing.