WASHINGTON, Jan. 28, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- DirectTrust today announced year-end results for 2019 showing an explosive surge in Direct Secure Messages and exceptional growth in the number of healthcare organizations using DirectTrust interoperability services. DirectTrust is a non-profit healthcare industry alliance created to support secure, identity-verified electronic exchanges of protected health information (PHI) between provider organizations, and between providers and patients, for the purpose of improved coordination of care.
According to year-end 2019 metrics:
- Direct exchange transactions: There were more than 811 million Direct Secure Messages sent and received between DirectTrust addresses in 2019, an increase of almost 200% over the 2018 total of nearly 274 million transactions. There were nearly 199 million Direct Secure Messages transmitted during the fourth quarter of 2019 alone. The cumulative total of Direct exchange transactions since 2014 reached 1.4 billion at the end of 2019.
- DirectTrust organizations served: The number of healthcare organizations served by DirectTrust accredited health information service providers (HISPs) jumped nearly 72% to more than 238,000, compared with approximately 138,000 at year-end 2018.
- DirectTrust trusted addresses: The number of trusted Direct addresses able to share PHI grew nearly 24% to more than 2.2 million compared with the same time last year.
- DirectTrust patient/consumer addresses: The number of patients/consumers using Direct increased nearly 21% to just over 299,000.
- DirectTrust national network: DirectTrust’s national network now includes 34 HISPs in the Accredited Trust Anchor Bundle and 41 DirectTrust-EHNAC accredited organizations.
- DirectTrust membership: 14 healthcare organizations joined DirectTrust during 2019, bringing the organization’s total membership to 104. New members during the fourth quarter include: Georgia Health Information Network (GaHIN) and the Virtual Specialist (Skip Rodenbush).
Scott Stuewe, President and CEO of DirectTrust commented: “We’re thrilled to see the explosive growth in Direct Secure Messages we experienced over the past year. We attribute this remarkable growth to the rapidly growing number of organizations served by DirectTrust health information service providers, and to the steadily growing number of patients and consumers using Direct Secure Messaging. With a wide variety of applicable use cases and capabilities, Direct Secure Messaging continues to be a proven, cost-effective, and uncomplicated mechanism for secure interoperable data transport.”
Charts detailing results through the end of 2019 are available here or by contacting Ed Emerman at eemerman@eaglepr.com or 609.275.5162.
About DirectTrust
DirectTrust™ is a non-profit, vendor-neutral alliance initially created by and for participants in the Direct community, including Health Information Service Providers (HISPs), Certificate Authorities (CAs), Registration Authorities (RAs), healthcare providers, consumers/patients, and Health IT vendors. DirectTrust serves as a governance forum, trust community, standards organization, and accreditation body for persons and entities engaged in exchange utilizing the Direct Standard™, supported by DirectTrust’s robust security and trust framework. The goal of DirectTrust is to develop, promote, and, as necessary, help enforce the rules and best practices necessary to maintain security and trust within the Direct Secure Messaging community. DirectTrust is committed to fostering widespread public confidence in the interoperable exchange of health information. To learn more, visit www.directtrust.org.
Media Contact
Ed Emerman
Eagle Public Relations
609.275.5162
eemerman@eaglepr.com