Western States Consortium Demonstrates "Scalable Trust" at ONC Interoperability Showcase During HIMSS13 Annual Conference & Exhibition

SACRAMENTO, CA -- (Marketwire) -- 03/04/13 -- California Health eQuality (CHeQ), in partnership with the California eHealth Initiative, will demonstrate the interstate health information exchange capabilities of the Western States Consortium (WSC) at Kiosk 5-1 at the ONC Interoperability Showcase during the HIMSS13 Annual Conference & Exhibition, March 3-7, 2013, in New Orleans.

The WSC has expanded beyond western states and now includes 14 states that have created a common set of policies, processes and technical standards for health information exchange using Direct (directproject.org) secure email across state lines.

"Providers become members of a 'trust community' when they agree to these common standards," said Robert Cothren, technical director of CHeQ, a program of the Institute for Population Health Improvement within the UC Davis Health System. "The WSC's approach is scalable for tens or even hundreds of organizations."

The Showcase demonstration will illustrate how a "trust community" of participating health care organizations within a pilot group of WSC states can share patient information securely without the considerable time, cost and inconvenience of establishing multiple point to point privacy, security, and technical protocols.

Features of the WSC trust environment include:

• Open standards based query of provider directories using web services and the health information service provider (HISP) Provider Directory (HPD) and HPDPlus data models.
  
  
• A common set of eligibility criteria and a "trust bundle" that permit all participating HISPs to immediately know with whom they can exchange messages.
  
  

The WSC now includes: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Michigan, Nevada, Utah, Oregon, New Mexico, and Washington.

About CHeQ
Under an inter-agency agreement with the California Health and Human Services Agency, California Health eQuality (CHeQ), a program of UC Davis Health System's Institute for Population Health Improvement (IPHI), partners with CHHS and CalOHII to carry out programmatic work under the state's Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH), aimed at supporting efforts necessary to advance health information exchange. CHeQ is led by Kenneth Kizer, MD, MPH, Distinguished Professor and Director, IPHI.

About the California eHealth Initiative
The California eHealth Initiative (www.ehealth.ca.gov) is a program of the California Office of Health Information Integrity (CalOHII) that works in support of the California Health and Human Services Agency (CHHS) health information exchange initiatives, oversees the collaborative statewide development and implementation of privacy and security policy for the electronic exchange of health information, enforces state law mandating the confidentiality of medical information and ensures uniform and cost effective HIPAA implementation.

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