Imprivata, a health IT security company, has joined the CommonWell Health Alliance, a not-for-profit trade association whose aim is to create universal access to health data via a person-centered, nationwide network.

Imprivata will contribute its expertise in the area of positive patient identification to help with CommonWell’s efforts to breakdown barriers to nationwide data exchange.

“Interoperability is the key to bringing the enormous power of technology to bear on healthcare, the way that it has in other industries,” said Gus Malezis, president and CEO of Imprivata. “Only when patient health information can be exchanged between care providers and health systems with confidence – securely, reliably and with precise digital identity – will we see the full potential that innovation can have on care.”

To reach that goal, organizations must ensure the positive identification of patients, and the ability to unequivocally match patients to their health records, Malezis added.

CommonWell said the association and its members have committed to using their diverse experience across the healthcare ecosystem to produce and deploy patient-centric interoperability services, including person enrollment, record location, patient identification and linking, and data query and retrieval. At their core, these services aim to solve the challenges associated with patient linking and identity at scale.

“CommonWell is made stronger by the unique and specific qualities each member brings to our organization,” said Nick Knowlton, membership committee chair for CommonWell Health Alliance and vice president at Brightree. “We welcome Imprivata as we continue to deploy our person-centric interoperability services nationwide.”

To date, nearly 70 companies are members of CommonWell, which, it said, is striving to help make interoperability ubiquitous in healthcare.

Twitter: @SiwickiHealthIT
Email the writer: bill.siwicki@himssmedia.com