This appeared a few days ago.
DirectTrust Reaches 200,000 Individual Accounts, Begins Testing
Greg Goth
MAY 2, 2014 1:04pm ET
A non-profit trade alliance that advances secure health information exchange via the Direct Protocol has expanded its trusted, national network to include 26 Direct exchange health information service providers. Washington, D.C.-based DirectTrust has also begun extensive HISP-to-HISP interoperability testing to ensure continued reliability of the network.
The 26 HISPs now provide Direct exchange services to more than 5,000 healthcare organization--including medical practices, clinics, hospitals, pharmacies and laboratories-- with nearly 200,000 individual Direct accounts and addresses nationwide.
“This network’s growth--more than 20-fold in nine months--has exceeded everyone’s wildest expectations,” said DirectTrust President and CEO David C. Kibbe, M.D. “Meaningful use is only meaningful to the extent that health data and information can follow the patient from one clinical setting to another--securely.
The full article is found here:
Here is a summary from the web page:
Welcome to DirectTrust
The DirectTrust network now serves over 4,000 health care organizations and over 200,000 individual Direct users who are exchanging tens of thousands of Direct messages and attachments nationwide each month. With the new federal interoperability requirements for EHRs to be Direct enabled, the network will expand and these numbers exponentially increase during 2014. Whether you are a health care professional, medical practice, hospital, pharmacy, clinical lab, or individual patient/consumer, there are DirectTrust members ready to onboard you with Direct exchange services right now. As of mid-April, 2014, 13 EHNAC-DirectTrust accredited HISPs, and an additional 13 HISPs in EHNAC-DirectTrust accreditation candidate status, are participants in the DirectTrust anchor bundle, offering their subscribers a broad network of secure Direct connectivity both locally and nationally, via EHRs,HIEs, and web portals. To find a DirectTrust network service provider ready to serve your community, see this page, and feel free to contact us at admin@DirectTrust.org with your questions and comments. Expect Direct!
DirectTrust is an independent non-profit trade association created by and for participants in the Direct community, our common goal being to establish and maintain a national Security and Trust Framework in support of Direct exchange. We define the Trust Framework as a set of technical, legal, and business standards, expressed as policies and best practices recommendations, which members of the trust community agree to follow, uphold, and enforce. Based on this Trust Framework, DirectTrust has partnered with EHNAC to offer an Accreditation Program for HISPs and other trusted agents involved in Direct exchange, and has launched a Trust Anchor Bundle Distribution Service for accredited entities' use.
Members of DirectTrust now include over 120 representatives from Health Internet Service Providers (HISPs), Health Information Exchanges (HIEs), Certificate Authorities (CAs), consultants, state agencies, and EHR vendors, as well as health care providers and provider organizations who are their purchasers and subscribers. We support both provider-to-provider Direct exchange as well as patient-to-provider Direct exchange.
In March, 2013, DirectTrust was awarded an ONC Cooperative Agreement to further our work in accreditation, trust anchor distribution services, and ongoing governance of the DirectTrust community. The Cooperative Agreement was renewed for a second year by ONC on March 25, 2014. A part of the Exemplar Health Information Exchange Governance Program, the purpose of the grant award is to "increase interoperability, decrease cost and complexity, and facilitate trust among participants using Direct for health information exchange of personal health information for health care improvements"
DirectTrust operates in a manner consistent with the governance rules for the Direct Project and the NwHIN promulgated by HHS, ONC, and the mandates of the HITECH Act. DirectTrust is competitively neutral, and we welcome new participants.
The full web-site is here.
This is certainly a trend to watch closely! It might turn out to be very important indeed!
David.
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