TEFCA

Portrait of Alex Baker

Interoperability in Action: CMS Rule Builds on ONC Initiatives to Simplify Health Information Exchange

Alex Baker | October 13, 2022

On August 1, 2022, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced final changes to its payment program for acute care hospitals in 2023. The FY 2023 Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) final rule also included policies for the 2023 Medicare Promoting Interoperability Program, which rewards eligible hospitals and critical access hospitals (CAHs) for the meaningful use of certified electronic health record (EHR) technology, and for the Inpatient Quality Reporting Program, which requires hospitals to report data in key areas.  

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Portrait of Elise Sweeney Anthony

Marching Forward: The Path to Operationalize TEFCA

Elise Sweeney Anthony | May 16, 2022

On January 18, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) and the TEFCA Recognized Coordinating Entity® (RCETM), The Sequoia Project, released the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common AgreementSM (TEFCASM). The next key step for TEFCA is the release of resources to advance its operationalization, such as standard operating procedures (SOPs). These SOPs will include specific policies and procedures to further guide QHINs and will identify, where applicable, necessary technical implementation requirements.

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Portrait of Micky Tripathi

3…2…1…TEFCA is Go for Launch

Micky Tripathi | January 18, 2022

The Trusted Exchange Framework and Common AgreementSM is now available. Within the health information technology (health IT) world, few things have been as elusive as a governance framework for nationwide health information exchange. When ONC was formed in 2004, the concept of a nationwide health information network—where your information could be located across the country in a click—was a big picture vision that drove the federal government’s early health IT infrastructure, standards, policy actions, and investments.

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Portrait of Micky Tripathi

TEFCA Will be Live in 2022

Micky Tripathi | July 13, 2021

Today we are pleased to announce the timeline for the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common AgreementSM (TEFCASM). The 21st Century Cures Act, signed by President Obama in 2016, calls on ONC to “develop or support a trusted exchange framework, including a common agreement among health information networks nationally.”
In August 2019, ONC awarded a cooperative agreement to The Sequoia Project to serve as the Recognized Coordinating Entity® (RCETM) to administer a new nationwide network based on the Common Agreement.

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Portrait of Vaishali Patel

Health Affairs Article Points to HIO Readiness & Engagement in TEFCA

Vaishali Patel | June 22, 2021

The best way to gather information is by going straight to the source. That’s exactly what ONC did to learn and assess the state of health information entities, also known as health information exchange organizations (HIOs), across the country.  A recent survey conducted by Dr. Julia Adler-Milstein of University of California San Francisco (USCF), with ONC support, is the sixth national HIO survey of its kind. This instrument placed a particular emphasis on the proposed Trusted Exchange Framework and Common AgreementSM (TEFCASM).

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