DirectTrust Reports Record Growth in Direct Transactions, Number of Direct Exchange Addresses and Users

WASHINGTON, DC--(Marketwired - Jan 24, 2017) - DirectTrust today announced continued record growth in the number of health care organizations using Direct interoperability services during 2016, as well as an upsurge in the number of Direct addresses and message transactions nationwide. DirectTrust is a non-profit health care industry alliance created by and for participants in the Direct interoperability network used for secure, identity-verified electronic exchange of personal health information (PHI) between provider organizations, and between provider and patients, for the purpose of improved coordination of care.

According to year-end 2016 metrics, there were more than 98 million Direct message transactions between Direct addresses in 2016, bringing the total number of transactions to more than 165 million since DirectTrust's 2013 inception. There were more than more than 33.5 million Direct messages transmitted during the fourth quarter of 2016 alone.

The number of trusted Direct addresses able to share PHI across the DirectTrust network increased 24% to more than 1.36 million since the end of 2015.

The number of health care organizations served by DirectTrust accredited health information service providers (HISPs) increased 36% to nearly 71,000, compared with approximately 52,000 at year-end 2015. DirectTrust's national network now includes 41 EHNAC-DirectTrust accredited HISPs working with more than 350 ONC certified EHRs.

"What we're experiencing is the continued expansion of Direct as a national platform for interoperability among users of hundreds of different vendors' EHR, PHR and other IT products," said DirectTrust President and CEO David. C. Kibbe, MD MBA. "As EHRs become virtually ubiquitous in hospitals and medical practices, Direct messaging adds value by virtue of being 'plugged in' and able to replace fax and mail for all sorts of transactions, without the end user having to leave his or her EHR system. It's important that Direct be convenient and work flow friendly."

Dr. Kibbe continued: "The primary use cases for Direct continue to be support of care coordination, and clinical messaging for referrals and alerts, but we're also starting to see Direct messaging for administrative and research data communications. As demand for Direct grows, vendors are increasingly improving their usability for Direct, and adding file formats that can be shared as attachments. I am really encouraged to see those 'last mile' types of problems being addressed across the entire industry."

Charts detailing results through the end of 2016 are available here or by contacting Ed Emerman at eemerman@eaglepr.com or 609.275.5162.

About DirectTrust
 DirectTrust is a five-year old, non-profit, competitively neutral, self-regulatory entity initially created by and for participants in the Direct exchange community, including Health Internet Service Providers (HISPs), Certificate Authorities (CAs), Registration Authorities (RAs), doctors, patients and vendors. DirectTrust supports both provider-to-provider and patient-to-provider Direct exchange. In the period 2013 to 2015, DirectTrust was the recipient of a Cooperative Agreement Award from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) as part of the Exemplar HIE Governance Program. DirectTrust serves as a forum and governance body for persons and entities engaged in the Direct exchange of electronic health information as part of the Nationwide Health Information Network (NwHIN). DirectTrust's Security and Trust Framework is the basis for the voluntary accreditation of service providers implementing Direct health information exchange. 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 community, consistent with the HITECH Act and the governance rules for the NwHIN established by ONC. DirectTrust is committed to fostering widespread public confidence in the interoperable exchange of health information. To learn more, visit www.directtrust.org.