Carequality Elects New Steering Committee

Committee to Oversee Launch of Nation’s Broadest “Network to Network” Interoperability Effort
Members Represent Physicians, Networks, Vendors, Consumers, Government and Others

McLean, VA. (November 13, 2015) – Carequality today announced the results of its election for the 2015-2016 term of the Carequality Steering Committee. Carequality’s Steering Committees have made great strides to unify the largest and broadest group of healthcare stakeholders to create a technical and legal exchange framework to accelerate patient data exchange nationwide. Many committee members were re-elected for a second term and will be joined by new members from CVS MinuteClinic, Dignity Health, lifeIMAGE and the National Association for Trusted Exchange (NATE).

“The coming year is going to be particularly important for Carequality as we transition our nationwide interoperability framework into operations,” said Dave Cassel, Carequality Director. “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:

• Dr. Michael Hodgkins, American Medical Association (chair)
• Hans Buitendijk, Cerner (vice chair)
• Kathy Lewis, Surescripts
• Keith McNeice, Carolinas HealthCare System
• 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

During the tenure of the outgoing Steering Committee, Carequality achieved many milestones, including developing the trust and legal agreements needed for nationwide interoperability, and launching the initial rollout of the Interoperability Framework.

The newly elected Carequality Steering Committee will continue leading the initiative toward its ambitious goal: connecting the many valuable health information exchange networks operating throughout the country to achieve near-universal interoperability. The ultimate mission is to create a system much like the ATM network in banking, where healthcare organizations will be able to share information securely over the Internet, regardless of the specific technology platform or data exchange network they use.

The 2015-2016 Steering Committee is responsible for the Carequality strategy as well as the development and oversight of a fair, equitable and practical process for developing and maintaining an interoperability framework.

Steering Committee Member Quotes

“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. 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. I welcome the new team of recruits to the Steering Committee; we have a lot to do, so let’s roll up our sleeves and get moving.”  Steering Committee Chair Dr. Michael Hodgkins, CMIO, American Medical Association

“I’m pleased to serve the committee as vice chair. Cerner supports all efforts to advance the ability of its clients to share information nationwide, regardless of the technology platform deployed by other organizations. It’s important our industry leaders continue to contribute to initiatives that seek to make nationwide, secure data sharing a reality in the near future.”

Steering Committee Vice Chair Hans Buitendijk, Cerner

“This is an important year for Carequality. We are pleased by the level of industry support for a network-of-networks. We have hundreds of hospitals and thousands of clinics ready to be Carequality-connected to accelerate interoperability between vendors and provider groups regardless of platform.”

Steering Committee Member Rob Klootwyk, Epic 

“NATE’s mission is to promote data access for the consumer and trusted exchange between consumers and providers throughout the health community, and whenever we see opportunities to contribute to initiatives making real progress in this field, we jump at the chance to participate. I’ve seen firsthand the results of the collaboration taking place through Carequality and I look forward to seeing what we can accomplish in the coming year.”

New Steering Committee Member Aaron Seib, CEO, NATE