DirectTrust expands network, increases testing

Non-profit trade alliance DirectTrust, which promotes health information exchange via the Direct Protocol, has expanded its national network.

The alliance recently added 26 Direct exchange health information service providers (HISPs) and began large-scale interoperability testing to ensure continued reliability. These HISPs represent more than 5,000 healthcare organizations, including medical practices, clinics, hospitals, pharmacies and laboratories, with nearly 200,000 individual Direct accounts and addresses nationwide, according to DirectTrust.

“This network’s growth–-more than 20-fold in nine months–-has exceeded everyone’s wildest expectations,” DirectTrust President and CEO David C. Kibbe, MD, said. “Meaningful Use is only meaningful to the extent that health data and information can follow the patient from one clinical setting to another–-securely. Now, virtually any physician or hospital in the country can use their DirectTrust-accredited EHR's exchange services to connect to other physicians and hospitals on the network.”

Extensive HISP-to-HISP testing also is underway to help ensure the growing network’s ongoing reliability, according to DirectTrust.

Known as the Transitional Trust Anchor Bundle, participating HISPs currently include: Cerner, Inpriva, ICA, SureScripts, MedAllies, Axesson, Updox, MRO, IOD, Secure Exchange Solutions, Covisint, RelayHealth, San Diego Health Connect, Orion Health, athenaHealth, HealtheConnections RHIO of CNY, MaxMD, CareAccord, NextGen Share, Healthcare Information Xchange of NY, DataMotion, MiHIN, Infomedtrix, EMR Direct, Medicity and HealthUnity.    

More information on the anchor bundle is here.