This past decade, we have witnessed steady improvements to healthcare interoperability. For those paying close attention, the CONNECT open source project has played a role in making those improvements possible. Now the time has come for the community at large to determine the future of CONNECT.

One in an occasional series of ‘Where-are-they-now?’ posts about ONC Challenge Winners
We recently checked in with  ClinicalBox  and Lowell General Hospital about their progress since being selected as one of six winners of ONC’s 2015 Market Research and Development (R&D) Pilot Challenge in 2015.* This challenge broke down the barriers between promising start ups and healthcare stakeholders by helping early stage health information technology (health IT) companies connect with healthcare organizations that were willing to host pilot programs.

For patients, healthcare providers, and health plans (among other stakeholders) who need trustworthy, actionable information, the advantages of validated “healthcare directories” are wide ranging and will play an increasing part in our nation’s interoperability infrastructure. Healthcare directories play a critical role in enabling identification of individual providers and provider organizations, as well as characteristics about them, their relationships, and the means by which to access and exchange health information among them electronically. Healthcare directories support a variety of use cases,

We know it’s been a busy year for your reviewing and commenting on our 21st Century Cures Act Proposed Rule and the latest draft documents associated with the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA).