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Case Study: Nationwide Health Information Network Test Infrastructure
The Nationwide Health Information Network is a set of standards, services and policies that enable secure health information exchange over the Internet. 5AM helps organizations test and validate that their software conforms to specifications.
The Client
Within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) coordinates federal efforts to encourage the development of a national health IT architecture to enable:
- Availability of information to guide medical decisions and improved coordination of care;
- Improvement of health care quality and reduction of health care cost;
- Availability of personal health information to patients for non-medical use.
The Challenge
In support of ONC’s mission, the Nationwide Health Information Network (the Exchange) enables Health Information Exchange organizations (HIEs) across the nation – from statewide groups to health care providers to federal agencies like the Departments of Veteran Affairs (VA), the Social Security Administration (SSA), and others – to securely exchange data using shared interoperability standards. HIEs seeking to participate must demonstrate conformance to the technical specifications. To enable interested HIEs to demonstrate conformance and complete the process to join the Exchange, ONC sought support to develop a robust test infrastructure.
The Result
5AM, in partnership with CGI Federal Incorporated (CGI), engaged with ONC to develop a robust test infrastructure and validation process. Working with a community of interested parties, 5AM’s experienced analysts developed a suite of tests, test data, supporting tools to support testing; gathered stakeholder input to define the validation process to allow HIEs participate in the exchange; and worked with partners at the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) to assess and analyze testing results.
Participation in the exchange, as a trusted community, is predicated on participants meeting the defined requirements for participation, including organizational (meets the eligibility criteria), technical (employs a technical solution meeting validation requirements), and operational (has appropriate administrative, security, and policy qualifications) criteria. The validation approach seeks to confirm, as simply as possible, that an organization can demonstrate its solution’s conformance to the Exchange’s shared interoperability standards.
Testing can be a nerve-wracking process – 5AM’s analysts, who are grounded in software engineering principles, understand this, and so created a validation process that clearly articulates the process and the requirements. We help HIEs understand the rules and expectations through clear documentation and a transparent, open, and communicative process. The process is continually improved to be both easier and more efficient, reducing the amount of time needed to complete the validation process.
As the standards evolve to meet new needs within the community, and as the Exchange grows, 5AM continues to develop and maintain the testing infrastructure and create new capabilities to make the test infrastructure more effective and easier to use. A conformance testing “lab” enables HIEs to test with a proctor in a guided simulation of real-life health information exchange that provides rapid feedback and rapid testing results.
Collaboration Around Health Information Exchange
Put 5AM’s deep knowledge of health information exchange – theory, standards and specifications, challenges, technical and operational solutions, and validation – to work for you. Contact Leslie Power at lpower at 5amsolutions com or 202-359-0990 to discuss.