State and local health information exchanges that agree to a public health use case with eHealth Exchange or the new Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology’s Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement program by April 30 will have three years of annual fees waived.

The Qualified Health Information Network is pushing for more public health use cases under TEFCA, particularly among those state, tribal, local and territorial public health agencies.

While many of its network members are engaged with public health, eHealth Exchange needs early adopters for the TEFCA public health use cases to support the realization of the budding federal framework, Jay Nakashima, executive director of eHealth Exchange, said in an announcement Tuesday.

"Tying public health into current nationwide health data exchange efforts will ensure a healthier patient population across the U.S," he said.

As part of its draft TEFCA 2.0 update, The Sequoia Project, ONC's recognized coordinating entity for TEFCA, is proposing highly anticipated procedures for electronic case reporting, which is already required by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for eligible hospitals and clinicians since 2022.

“Based on our current members’ extensive experience, we know electronic health data exchange can make a significant impact on electronic case reporting and public health tracking," Nakashima added.

About 80 million electronic case reports submitted today by providers to state, tribal, local and territorial agencies nationwide go through eHealth Exchange, according to the QHIN.

HIEs are eligible for eHealth Exchange's incentive program if they follow these criteria:

• Commit by April 30 to exchanging clinical data for an agreed-upon public health use case via eHealth Exchange.
• Begin testing by June 30.
• Go live in production exchanging public health data with other eHealth Exchange participants or TEFCA QHINs by December 30.

"By providing financial incentives to current and prospective members, we will help speed further adoption of vital public health data interoperability across the entire healthcare community," Nakashima said. 

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