The next major milestone comes when the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT announces that tech organizations have completed their onboarding process and will be designated as Qualified Health Information Networks to implement the framework. The networks have to meet high standards for privacy protections. In February, ONC named six approved applicants: Epic, CommonWell Health Alliance, eHealth Exchange, Health Gorilla, Kno2, and KONZA. When the networks complete their onboarding, Doyle says, “Then it goes from a plan to a real thing.” Doyle hopes that the framework will go live sometime in 2023. The key is for other networks to be ready to join, but Doyle says, “Epic will be ready.”

More than half of hospitals are aware of the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA) and plan to participate in the HIE framework, according to ONC analysis of American Hospital Association (AHA) survey data fielded through December 2022. The survey found that 25 percent of hospitals were unaware of TEFCA, and 23 percent were aware of TEFCA but unsure if they would participate. Only one percent of responding hospitals said that they were aware of TEFCA and did not plan to participate.

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology proposed new regulations in April that would require developers to share with clinicians a fuller picture of what data were used to build algorithms. Kathryn Marchesini, the agency’s chief privacy officer, described the new regulations as a “nutrition label” that helps doctors know “the ingredients used to make the algorithm.” The hope is more transparency will help providers determine if an algorithm is unbiased enough to safely use on patients.

According to a recent American Hospital Association (AHA) survey, most hospitals know about the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA) and, among those, very few plan on sitting out.

On today’s episode of Gist Healthcare Daily, we hear the first part of JC’s conversation with Micky Tripathi, Ph.D., M.P.P., National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. He joined the podcast to talk more about ONC’s recently released proposed rule, “Health Data, Technology, and Interoperability: Certification Program Updates, Algorithm Transparency, and Information Sharing”--better known as HTI-1.