Nationwide Health Information Network

The Nationwide Health Information Network (formerly NHIN, now NwHIN) is an initiative for the exchange of healthcare information being developed under the auspices of the U.S. Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC).[1] (For the "National Health Information Network" a product from PDX, Inc see PDX Inc[2].)

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) has been facilitating development of the NwHIN, which will tie together health information exchanges, integrated delivery networks, pharmacies, government, labs, providers, payors and other stakeholders into a "network of networks."[3]

Former Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt has stressed, however, that the NwHIN will be a public-private venture. Foundations such as the Markle Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the California HealthCare Foundation are now providing financial support for research and demonstration projects that could lead to advances in the development of a nationwide health information network.[4]

Contents

NwHIN Participants

The stakeholders that participate in the NwHIN will be four broad classes of organizations:

Health Information Service Providers (HSPs)

Some organizations may lack the necessary technical or operational competencies to conform to the architecture and provide the core services. Instead, they may choose to use the services of an HSP. An HSP is a company or other organization that will support one or more NwHIN participants by providing them with operational and technical health exchange services necessary to fully qualify to connect to the NwHIN.[1]

How a Person Will Use the NwHIN

The business, trust and technical arrangements that will enable the NwHIN generally will be local and between organizations. Nonetheless, the primary users of the NwHIN will be people: healthcare providers, healthcare consumers and those who use the data in the NwHIN for public health, quality assessment or other purposes. These people will have several ways to take advantage of the information exchange available through the NwHIN.

Access Paths to the System:[1]

  1. Providers may use features of the electronic health record (EHR) systems of their own practice or hospital to connect to an HIE, and the HIE, in turn, will support information exchange with other EHRs or PHRs on that HIE or on other HIEs through the NwHIN;
  2. They may not have an EHR, so they may use the Web to access a portal operated by the HIE to access information.
  1. They may use features of a PHR that they designate as the repository of their personal health record, and that PHR may be connected to an HIE which, in turn, will provide a connection to the NwHIN;
  2. They may use features of a multi-regional PHR that will participate directly in the NwHIN;
  3. If they do not have access to a PHR, they may achieve some limited functionality by using the services of an HIE through its portal.

CONNECT

An open source software package is available that implements the NwHIN architecture from CONNECT. The CONNECT software is the outcome of a 2008 decision by federal agencies to begin work on connecting their health IT systems into the NwHIN. Rather than individually build the software required to make this possible, the federal agencies collaborated through the Federal Health Architecture program to create a single solution that can be reused by each agency within its own environment.[5] Twenty-two Cooperative members, including seven federal agencies using the CONNECT gateway, participated in testing and demonstrations in 2008.[1]

Future Direction

Moving forward, ONC will maintain overall responsibility for the governance of the NwHIN.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f http://healthit.hhs.gov/portal/server.pt/gateway/PTARGS_0_10741_877368_0_0_18/WhatIsTheNHIN.pdf
  2. ^ http://www.pdxinc.com/about/default.asp
  3. ^ http://www.nhinwatch.com/performSearch.cms?channelId=2
  4. ^ http://www.nhinwatch.com/performSearch.cms?channelId=6
  5. ^ http://www.connectopensource.org/display/Gateway/About+CONNECT

External links