With the election of new members from organizations such as CVS Minuteclinic, DignityHealth and the National Association for Trusted Exchange, Carequality’s steering committee will oversee the launch of the nation’s largest network-to-network interoperability effort.
"The coming year is going to be particularly important for Carequality as we transition our nationwide interoperability framework into operations," Dave Cassel, Carequality director, said in a statement. "We have a strong Committee that represents a wide variety of perspectives. Carequality has been able to tackle some really tough policy challenges because of participation from diverse players across healthcare, and diversity continues to be a strength with the new Committee."
The 2015-2016 Carequality Steering Committee members are:
- Michael Hodgkins, MD, American Medical Association (chair)
- Hans Buitendijk, Cerner (vice chair)
- Kathy Lewis, Surescripts
- Keith McNeice, Carolinas HealthCare System in Charlotte, N.C.
- James Murray, CVS MinuteClinic
- Ryan Stewart, Dignity Health
- Rob Klootwyk, Epic
- Mark Janiszewski, Greenway Health
- Leslie Kelly Hall, Healthwise
- Kevin Isbell, Kaiser Permanente
- Aaron Seib, NATE
- Hamid Tabatabaie, lifeIMAGE
- Kitt Winter, Social Security Administration
Responsibilities of the new committee will include connecting the disparate HIEs across the U.S. in order to achieve Carequality’s ultimate goal: near-universal interoperability and seamless data exchange.
"Carequality and its wide-ranging partners made notable strides to address interoperability this past year, but we’ve just scratched the surface and we must address the remaining hurdles," Michael Hodgkins, MD, CMIO of the AMA and steering committee chair, said in a statement. "The American Medical Association is committed to achieving a health system that can seamlessly exchange data to support the clinical needs of physicians and other health professionals and this coming year is going to be pivotal in the rollout of Carequality as a viable framework for interoperability among all health data exchange networks nationwide."
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