WASHINGTON, Jan. 18, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- DirectTrust today announced continued strong growth in the number of health care organizations using DirectTrust interoperability services during 2017, as well as an upsurge in the number of DirectTrust addresses and message transactions nationwide. DirectTrust is a non-profit health care industry alliance created to support secure, identity-verified electronic exchanges 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 2017 metrics, there were more than 167 million Direct message transactions between DirectTrust addresses in 2017, a significant increase over the 2016 total of 98 million transactions. There were more than 45 million Direct messages transmitted during the fourth quarter of 2017 alone.
The number of trusted DirectTrust addresses able to share PHI across the DirectTrust network increased 16% to nearly 1.6 million since the end of 2016.
The number of health care organizations served by DirectTrust accredited health information service providers (HISPs) increased 49% to more than 106 thousand, compared with approximately 71 thousand at year-end 2016. DirectTrust’s national network now includes 5 Governmental Trust Anchor Bundle HISPs; 38 Accredited Trust Anchor Bundle HISPs; and 43 DirectTrust-EHNAC accredited HISPs working with more than 350 ONC-certified EHR vendors, including the leading EHRs for both hospital in-patient and ambulatory software. There are approximately 400 health IT certified vendors, with approximately 1,200 Direct-enabled products, in the ONC Certified Health IT Product List (CHPL).
“Industry stakeholders are finding the value of DirectTrust interoperability is its one-to-many and many-to-many transport characteristic, and the evolution of a robust Trust Framework that gives participants great confidence in how they move health data and information securely among trusted individuals, organizations, and devices,” commented founding DirectTrust President and CEO David C. Kibbe, MD MBA. “Once looked upon by many as ‘just email,’ more people are recognizing Direct is a transport platform capable of easily and quickly linking disparate networks of almost any size, from the smallest medical practice, to the largest hospital or payer, to regional and state HIEs. Direct is not just a replacement for paper and fax exchanges, it is a much better way to move data from one point to multiple points.”
Charts detailing results through the end of 2017 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.
Contact
Ed Emerman
Eagle Public Relations
609.275.5162
eemerman@eaglepr.com