Health IT vendors launch CommonWell Health Alliance

A group of heath IT companies announced on  March 4 the launch of CommonWell Health Alliance. Founding members of the alliance Cerner, McKesson, Allscripts, athenahealth, Greenway Medical Technologies and RelayHealth – “will work to define, promote and certify a national infrastructure with platforms and policies to break down health information silos,” according to the announcement.

The group plans to establish the alliance as an independent nonprofit organization supporting universal access to reliable healthcare data through interoperability. Elements of its national infrastructure will be tested in a pilot program within the next year, and will focus on:

  • Patient linking and matching as individuals move through care facilities;
  • Consent and data access management that complies with HIPAA; and
  • Patient record locator to ensure complete history across multiple providers.

More information on the CommonWell Health Alliance is available here.

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