CommonWell Health Alliance has tapped Change Healthcare to bring information exchange technologies to members of the interoperability network. Change will provide patient identification and record locator tools, as well as document retrieval services.

WHY IT MATTERS
The agreement extends an existing partnership between CommonWell and Change and aims to improve quality, patient access and value-based care efforts for the member organizations of the interoperability alliance, whose clients include more than 13,000 provider sites, managing electronic health records for more than 50 million patients.

Change's says its scalable data exchange technologies are build around FHIR and open APIs to ease connectivity with various endpoints, whether health system EHRs or patient-facing consumer apps. Its wide-ranging Intelligent Healthcare Network enabled almost 14 billion healthcare transactions among providers, payers, pharmacies, labs and consumers in 2018.

THE LARGER TREND
Officials say that the partnership is aimed at helping healthcare customers boost quality and cost-efficiency, better comply with new interoperability regulations such as the 21st Century Cures Act and TEFCA and stay competitive among the larger market forces of consumerism and value-based reimbursement.

"The vision of CommonWell has always been that health data should be available to individuals and caregivers regardless of where care occurs," said Jitin Asnaani, executive director of CommonWell Health Alliance, in a statement. "Our partnership with Change Healthcare has enabled us to rapidly grow our national network – a critical component for ubiquitous interoperability – as we work towards making this vision a reality."

ON THE RECORD
"The extension of this relationship is a validation of the momentum we’ve gained toward patient-centric, universal interoperability—helping to ensure that health information is shared securely and seamlessly across the entire care continuum," added Kris Joshi, president of network solutions at Change Healthcare. "Alliances like this play a critical role in improving data exchange among industry stakeholders, and we’re honored to continue our partnership with CommonWell to enable broader use of interoperability capabilities."
 

Twitter: @MikeMiliardHITN
Email the writer: mike.miliard@himssmedia.com

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