NextGen Healthcare announced this week that it will apply to become a Qualified Health Information Network under Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT's Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement.

WHY IT MATTERS
The developer of electronic health records, practice management and revenue cycle tools aimed for outpatient settings is the first ambulatory-focused vendor to announce its intention to become a QHIN.

NextGen's cloud-based technology is used by some 100,000 providers across the country. It also works with about one-third of health information exchanges nationwide.

Once approved by ONC, the company will participate in a network of other healthcare organizations that work together to share clinical information on a nationwide level – with QHINs exchanging patient data with other QHINs to enable more widespread and seamless interoperability.

NextGen's QHIN would be vendor agnostic – able to support its own customers, as well as those who use other EHRs or HIEs.

Its NextGen Share technology already offers access to several national interoperability networks; the company has years of experience as an implementer of the Carequality framework, for instance.

THE LARGER TREND
The goal of QHINs is to support the nationwide exchange of treatment, payment and public health data.

As ONC's designated Recognized Coordinating Entity for TEFCAs, the Sequoia Project recently published the QHIN fee schedule and other standard operating procedures. It has also developed draft onboarding and SOPs earlier this spring.

Another vendor to have announced its intention to be a QHIN is Epic. The EHR giant announced in June that it will apply to connect to TEFCA when the application process opens later this year

See also: Everything you wanted to know about TEFCA (but were afraid to ask).

ON THE RECORD
"Interoperability is the key to whole person health, and NextGen Healthcare is already a leader in facilitating the open exchange of data," NextGen president and CEO David Sides said in a statement.

"With the infrastructure already in place, applying to become a QHIN is the next logical step and aligns with our mission of empowering every member of the care continuum with the data necessary to make the best decisions possible."

Twitter: @MikeMiliardHITN
Email the writer: mike.miliard@himssmedia.com
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS publication.