A major vendor-led interoperability effort, CommonWell Health Alliance, has one notable absence in its ranks — electronic health record giant Epic.
When the Alliance was formed, Epic refused to participate, denouncing the effort as a ploy to increase the vendors' market share as government-issued interoperability standards should render such an organization redundant, according to an article in Forbes.
Now, Epic has partnered with several leading healthcare organizations to form Carequality, a spinoff from the federally funded health information exchange effort Healtheway. Along with Walgreens, Surescripts, UnitedHealth Group, Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente and others, the new group seeks to accelerate the exchange of patient data not just between vendors but between hospitals, payers, physicians, retail clinics and other healthcare organizations.
"We represent not just vendors or health care providers, or payers, but all stakeholders," Mariann Yeager, Healtheway's executive director, told Forbes. "This is a call for all stakeholders to participate."
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