eHealth Exchange Reaches 100 Members and Expects to Connect 40% of U.S. Hospitals by Year End; Also Increases Participation from Small and Mid-Sized Medical Groups

MCLEAN, VA--(Marketwired - Jul 30, 2015) - The eHealth Exchange today announced participation has expanded in the last six months, officially reaching 100 organizational participants. The eHealth Exchange achieved particularly significant gains in the number of medical groups and dialysis centers joining the largest nationwide health information exchange network. The growth experienced in early 2015 is also backed by a strong pipeline of organizations in the process of joining. Current projections for participation by year end include more than 40% of hospitals nationwide.

According to John Kansky, president and CEO of the Indiana Health Information Exchange and Vice Chair of the eHealth Exchange coordinating committee, "Historically, the eHealth Exchange has been known as an exchange for large care providers, health information exchange organizations and government agencies. What's particularly interesting about the new growth statistics is the increased connectivity with other types of care settings, such as pharmacies, dialysis centers and small and medium sized medical groups. We've spent a good deal of time and effort simplifying our onboarding processes and selling the business value to organizations of all types and sizes, and clearly that work has paid off."

In total, the eHealth Exchange network includes participation from 30% of U.S. hospitals (40% by year's end), four federal agencies (with a fifth expected in 2015), over 13,000 medical groups, 3,400 dialysis centers, and more than 8,300 pharmacies.

"In addition to seeing a spike in the number of participants, we've heard feedback from eHealth Exchange participants saying that the larger the network grows, the more value they've been able to get out of it. While it may be interesting to connect individual hospital systems with each other, it truly becomes compelling when we're able to connect most care providers throughout the country -- whether big or small, private sector or government," said Michael Matthews, CEO of MedVirginia and board chair of The Sequoia Project.

In order to support even more rapid expansion through the rest of the year, the eHealth Exchange is finalizing the process to expedite testing for organizations using qualified technologies that have been pretested for compliance. The goal is to shorten the testing process from weeks to days for proven technology platforms. More details about the accelerated testing process will be available in the near future.

The eHealth Exchange is an initiative of The Sequoia Project, the independent, trusted advocate for nationwide health information exchange.

About eHealth Exchange

The eHealth Exchange is a rapidly growing health information exchange network for securely sharing clinical information over the Internet nationwide. The eHealth Exchange spans all 50 states and is the largest health information exchange infrastructure in the US. The network was incubated by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (HHS) and transitioned to function as an independent initiative, supported by The Sequoia Project (formerly Healtheway) in 2012 to begin private sector stewardship of the network. Current eHealth Exchange participants include large provider networks, hospitals, pharmacies, regional health information exchanges and many federal agencies, representing 1/3 of all U.S. hospitals, tens of thousands of medical groups, more than 8,000 pharmacies and 100 million patients. For more information about the eHealth Exchange, visit www.ehealthexchange.com.

About The Sequoia Project

The Sequoia Project, formerly Healtheway, is a non-profit 501c3 chartered to advance implementation of secure, interoperable nationwide health information exchange. The Sequoia Project supports multiple, independent health IT interoperability initiatives, most notably: the eHealth Exchange, a rapidly growing community of exchange partners who share information under a common trust framework and a common set of rules; and Carequality, a public-private collaborative effort to build consensus among existing data sharing networks regarding technical specifications and best practices, much like the telecommunications industry did for linking cell phone networks. For more information about The Sequoia Project and its initiatives, visit www.sequoiaproject.org. Follow The Sequoia Project on Twitter: @SequoiaProject.