Hospital customers are being encouraged by Epic Systems to utilize a new federal network for exchanging medical records.

• By 2025, Epic Systems aims to have its customers utilize a government-supported medical records exchange network known as TEFCA.
• In December, TEFCA was launched with the objective of establishing legal and technical standards for sharing patient data among hospitals and clinics.
• Epic's commitment to TEFCA may enhance the credibility of the emerging network.

By the end of next year, Epic Systems, a health-care software giant whose technology is utilized in thousands of hospitals and clinics nationwide, announced that it intends to relocate all its customers to a new government-supported medical records exchange.

The Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA) is being established by the federal government with the help of groups like Epic, to provide a legal and technical framework for securely sharing patient data.

By the end of 2025, Epic aims to have the entire Epic community on the network, with all customers committed to the transition a year earlier. TEFCA launched in December.

Accessing comprehensive medical records for patients is challenging due to the variety of formats and vendors used to store information. Despite Epic housing records for over 280 million individuals in the U.S., patients often have records across multiple vendors.

Accessing sensitive patient information presents significant challenges due to privacy regulations, such as HIPAA, which mandates third-party access only with patient consent or knowledge.

TEFCA was established to unite various stakeholders in the health-care information exchange. Epic's significant market presence and long history will likely enhance TEFCA's credibility due to its commitment to the exchange.

On Friday, Carequality, an interoperability network, announced that it is working to align with TEFCA, in addition to Epic being a member of Carequality.

In order to become a member of Carequality, organizations must undergo a vetting process and agree to adhere to specific "permitted purposes" for the exchange of patient records. For example, the "treatment" permitted purpose means that the doctor or hospital requesting the data is providing care to the patient in question.

Epic accused Carequality of violating its policy earlier this year by requesting records for purposes other than treatment. Carequality has now revised its policy to align with TEFCA's definition of treatment, which may prevent future conflicts.

Carequality supports and encourages secure health information exchange and has developed TEFCA, which it actively supports.

Carequality's decision to align with TEFCA and use the same definition of treatment has been commended by Epic, who will continue to assist customers in facilitating exchanges through Carequality as they transition to TEFCA.

Over 50,000 clinics and more than 600,000 care providers are currently connected to Carequality, which connects over 70% of hospitals.

Epic stated that TEFCA is the best chance for the U.S. to have 30% of hospitals participate in data exchange networks and strengthen relationships between care organizations and data exchange networks.

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