Sequoia Project and AHIMA partner on new data utilization initiative

In collaboration with the American Health Information Management Association, the Sequoia Project will provide technical support, testing support and facilitation to help make the exchange of data between organizations more calculable and actionable.

why it matters

Ajooba, Civitas Networks for Health, Epic, Foothold Technologies, HCA, Health Gorilla, HIMSS Electronic Health Records Association, Kno2, MedAlize, New York eHealth Collaborative and Optum are among the first participants in the new Data Usability Taking Route initiative, announced Tuesday

They will each choose their own implementation path and pace for the Sequoia Project Interoperability Matters Data Usability Workgroup Guidelines, choosing the most meaningful topics for their organizations.

“Implementors choose to work on the areas that matter most to them,” Didi Davis, Sequoia Project’s vice president of informatics, conformance and interoperability, explained in the new announcement.

“For some, this may mean working on data provenance and change traceability, data integrity and trust, or data tagging and discoverability,” she explained. “For others, it may mean effective use of code, reducing the impact of duplicates, effective use of narrative, or any combination they choose.”

The guidance, which targets improvements needed for semantic interoperability of clinical data shared between health care providers, encourages organizations to stop thinking of utility as a typical health IT project and make practical incremental improvements. Encourages the adoption of a data-usability approach in all projects to Over time, according to organizations.

Amy Moser, AHIMA’s interim CEO, said the public and private sectors have together made significant progress in health data interoperability.

“Data utility is part of the DNA of the health informatics profession,” Moser said. “Implementation of data usage guidance at a national level will promote sustainability across data-sharing technologies, at a time when more data is available and shared than ever before.”

“The guidance for the project prioritizes elements that can be implemented within the 18-month time frame,” Sequoia Project CEO Marian Yeager said in an email today. Healthcare IT News,

“We hope that as we go forward we will learn which elements may be ‘low hanging fruit’, and which may be more complex to implement.”

AHIMA and the Sequoia Project will host a series of virtual events, culminating in the Data Usability Taking Route summit on September 6 in Washington, DC.

big trend

In December, the Sequoia Project published its final implementation guide on Data Usability. It described the guide as providing real-world data utility recommendations for health information networks and communities. It includes identified priority use cases that can be readily adopted within health information exchange vendors, implementers, networks, governance frameworks, and testing programs.

Since that time seven eligible health information networks were approved to form a nationwide interoperability network under the 21st Century Cures Act.

Offering an update on TEFCA interoperability milestones at the US Department of Health and Human Services’ accreditation event in May, Secretary Javier Becerra accredited six QHINs to move into the preproduction testing phase, some with new AHIMA/Sequoia project data have joined. Usability Initiatives – Epic, Health Gorilla and Kno2.

On the record

“Over three years, more than 260 health organizations have collaborated through the Sequoia Project to develop practical guidance for healthcare providers, health IT vendors, public health, health information exchange, and making health data more useful to patients.” worked together,” Yeager said in the statement announcing it. Data utility is taking root. “Now is the time to implement this guidance for the public good.”

This story was updated to include additional comments from Sequoia Project CEO Marian Yeager.

Andrea Fox is a senior editor for Healthcare IT News.
Email: afox@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.