VIENNA, Va., April 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Sequoia Project, a non-profit and trusted advocate for nationwide health IT interoperability, today announced this year’s board of directors and board-elected officers. Additionally, the company introduced the new Stakeholder Engagement Workgroup and launched two new Information Blocking Compliance Task Groups.
The Sequoia Project welcomes new board members Willarda Edwards, MD, of American Medical Association, and Josh Mast of Cerner. The board of directors elected new officers, including:
- Michael Hodgkins, MD, retired American Medical Association, chairman
- David Horrocks, New York eHealth Collaborative, vice chairman
- Lee Barrett, Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission (EHNAC), secretary
- Rita Bowen, MRO, treasurer
- Steven Lane, MD, Sutter Health (immediate past chair and physician representative)
The incoming board and new members, as well as the workgroup and taskforce members, bring fresh perspectives and guidance to The Sequoia Project’s work on the nation’s most pressing health information technology (health IT) interoperability challenges. These include information blocking compliance, pandemic responses and data usability. The highly experienced directors and taskforce members will help The Sequoia Project achieve its strategic objectives and advance the health IT domain.
“New board members, Edwards and Mast, have experiences and views that will be invaluable for The Sequoia Project in the upcoming years as we continue to advance nationwide interoperability and health IT initiatives,” said Mariann Yeager, chief executive officer of The Sequoia Project. “I also want to congratulate continuing members of the board of directors, whose leadership and expertise have been vital to us across all of our efforts.”
Recently, The Sequoia Project expanded its Interoperability Matters initiative, a public-private cooperative solving discrete health information exchange, to include additional topic areas as identified by its membership and board of directors. Two new task groups, the Definition of Electronic Health Information (EHI) Task Group and the Good Practices for Compliance and To Meet Customer and Patient Needs Task Group, were added to the existing Information Blocking Compliance Workgroup. These news task groups will further address a range of nationwide interoperability and health IT challenges facing the industry.
The Definition of EHI Task Group will build upon the work started by American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), HIMSS Electronic Health Record Association (EHRA) and the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) to better understand the scope of EHI that must be included in a response to a request under information blocking.
The Good Practices Task Group will focus on identifying and compiling the best practices for various types of actors under information blocking to help guide compliance and implementation of the regulations.
Current members of the Information Blocking Compliance Workgroup will be participating in these task groups and contributing to the production of task group deliverables.
The newly convened Stakeholder Engagement Workgroup will identify, prioritize and recommend strategies for involving various stakeholder types in The Sequoia Project’s interoperability work, both within and beyond current membership.
“The Sequoia Project has been doing critical work behind the scenes to advance interoperability for the public good and better health outcomes for a decade,” said Barrett, co-chair of the Interoperability Matters Leadership Counsel and EHNAC executive director and CEO. “The workgroup’s mission is to engage stakeholders who benefit from interoperability but haven’t been historically embraced it. The next 10 years of health IT will be shaped by dramatically increased participation of clinicians, consumers, health plans, public health agencies and others who have a vested interest in actively shaping interoperability solutions.”
You can find more information on the Interoperability Matters initiative and its workgroups at www.sequoiaproject.org/interoperability-matters.
A complete list of the board of directors and more information on The Sequoia Project governance can be found on The Sequoia Project website at https://sequoiaproject.org/about-us/board-of-directors/.
About The Sequoia Project
The Sequoia Project is a non-profit, 501c3, public-private collaborative chartered to advance implementation of secure, interoperable nationwide health information exchange. The Sequoia Project focuses on solving real-world interoperability challenges and brings together public and private stakeholders in forums, such as the Interoperability Matters cooperative, to overcome barriers. The Sequoia Project is the Recognized Coordinating Entity (RCE) for the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT’s Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA), for which it will develop, implement and maintain the TEFCA’s Common Agreement component and operationalize the Qualified Health Information Network (QHIN) designation and monitoring process. For more information about The Sequoia Project and its
initiatives, visit www.sequoiaproject.org. Follow The Sequoia Project on Twitter: @SequoiaProject.
