We recently caught up with Paul L Wilder, Executive Director of CommonWell Health Alliance to get his insights on the biggest wins of 2022 and what to expect from CommonWell in 2023.
One week ago, we were just wrapping up our 2022 CommonWell Fall Annual Summit! A time to congregate with coopetitors, welcome new members and reconnect with former colleagues and friends.
Our newest blog explains why the CommonWell Record Locator Service (RLS) is critical to enhancing nationwide interoperability and to the success of TEFCA.
Our newest blog explains why the CommonWell Record Locator Service (RLS) is critical to enhancing nationwide interoperability and to the success of TEFCA.
If we assume 95% of your health care is local (within the 50 miles eHX describes above), is the 5% irrelevant? Our belief is the 5% is often critically important and the effect of ignoring this will have an outsized effect on individuals who already have issues with patient access and the care they can receive. This problem is especially acute for patients that move a lot or need to travel long distances for care including but not limited to migrants, people living in rural communities, active service and retired veterans, people moving for their education or work, and later moving to live near family, people with more than one home, people traveling distances to receive specialty health care or people simply traveling for leisure or to visit friends and [...]
We believe TEFCA is the future of interoperability and as one of the largest, vendor-neutral, nationwide health data exchange networks in the U.S. leveraging a Record Locator Service, TEFCA was basically designed around the way we do business. CommonWell not only has every intention of applying to be a QHIN, but we’re excited about its potential to improve health data exchange and empower patients and welcome our collaborators, partners and competitors to join us in supporting and building TEFCA. We feel so strongly about it we’ve created a new suite of social media graphics to share our support and give our members an opportunity to join in on the fun as well. Follow us @CommonWell as we roll them out over the next few weeks. To learn more about CommonWell, [...]
CommonWell has been building and scaling a nationwide health data exchange network since 2013. In just under 10 years, it has grown to include more than 80 unique members and build a nationwide network that started with a few thousand provider organizations and now connects more than 27,000. This progress was made possible, in part, to its dedicated members--which 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, data locator services and more. CommonWell continues to innovate and thrive thanks to this robust membership. So, every year we talk about these important relationships during CommonWell TV by asking the simple question: Why did your organization join CommonWell? At athenahealth, we’re thinking [...]
This month marked the start of the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season, which stretches through November 30. With one named stormed already underway, The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration is anticipating an above average season—with a 70 percent chance the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season will bring 14 to 21 named storms, or storms with winds of 39 mph or higher; six to 10 hurricanes with winds of 74 mph or greater; and three to six major hurricanes, with winds of at least 111 mph. What does hurricane season have to do with interoperability? More than you might realize. We recently had an opportunity to hear a powerful anecdote about the importance of interoperability and health data exchange from Scott Afzal, President of CommonWell member, Audacious Inquiry. “We developed a disaster preparedness response [...]
Recently, CommonWell held its first ever FHIR Connectathon, during which 11 of our Service Adopters worked together along three focused tracks to expand FHIR technology on the network. In furtherance of that incredible spirit of collaboration we welcome four new Service Adopters to the Alliance! Let’s start with an excellent story from a longtime supporter of both interoperability and CommonWell: MEDHOST joined CommonWell as a Member back in 2016. They’ve now made the vault to Service Adopter, and we are honored to continue to partner in their journey. MEDHOST For over 35 years, MEDHOST has been providing products and services to healthcare facilities nationwide to enhance patient care and operational excellence with its clinical and financial solutions and services. MEDHOST solutions also include [...]
Recently, CommonWell hosted our first FHIR Connectathon under the working premise that the best way to figure out what we don’t know is to get our hands dirty and start testing. Participants included 11 of our Service Adopters: athenahealth, Cancer Insights, Cerner, Health Gorilla, Inovalon, MEDHOST, MEDITECH, Oprable, Patientory, Seqster and WellSky. We ran three testing tracks, all with the primary goal of expanding our reach into the FHIR space. There were three main goals that I personally had set forth for the Alliance to address as a part of this concerted testing effort: Test work that had been developed but not yet released Gather feedback to inform technical Service Provider of any enhancements or defects to address for future development Increase participation within the Alliance community to test [...]
