Need a Demo?
Write to us and one of our friendly staff will promptly schedule a demo
hello@trovehealth.io
What is TEFCA?
TEFCA stands for Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement. Office for National Coordination of Health IT published TEFCA in the year 2022.
Broad goal of TEFCA
According to research, when comprehensive healthcare data is available at the point of care, better healthcare outcomes can be obtained. The broad goal of TEFCA is the ensure that comprehensive health information of patients is instantly made available to clinicians, for treatment access, and also to the patients for patient access. This is called healthcare interoperability.
Telehealth and interoperability of health records
Studies suggest that about 66 percent of US healthcare costs are currently related to treating patients with numerous illnesses. Since a patient’s health records are siloed with providers treating specific illnesses, it is unlikely that a single physician treating the patient is likely to have a comprehensive view of the patient’s health.
Access to comprehensive medical records of the patient via interoperability becomes even more crucial in telemedicine because the provider does not have ‘in-person’ view of the patient. Hence, the provider has to rely on either the words of the patient or an attendant and the siloed information that may exist on the EMR. Contrast this with a scenario with the complete longitudinal health records from across the nation that TEFCA shall aggregate for the provider. Clearly, it is a no-brainer, that healthcare interoperability is vital for the success of telehealth.
Benefit of TEFCA for tele consultation of a new patient
Below are various healthcare examples where telehealth has immensely benefited with interoperability in healthcare. The plug-n-play APIs by Trove Health not only integrate with telehealth platform for nationwide, bi-directional interoperability but also automatically parse complex health data from third parties into a format suited to the telehealth platform for ease of clinical use.
Stuart Johnson, MD is a private practitioner in California and he is often called for second opinion. He says that “I see new patients all the time, and hence, it is unlikely that I have access to an EMR for the patient’s health records. In teleconsultation, it is impossible to complete a diagnosis without referring to past health records. With my telemedicine platform being TEFCA compliant, I am able to aggregate the said patient’s health records from EMRs across the US and perform a satisfactory diagnosis.” For compliance purposes, Dr. Johnson is also able to share the health data that he has generated on the patient via the same interoperability API plugged into his telehealth platform.
TEFCA improves telehealth experience for an existing patient
“For my existing patients’ teleconsultation, I can access ophthalmological records stored onto our EMR but sometimes lab results, amongst other types of health information, are not on our EMR,” says Mary O’Connor, MD. Her patient Jane, 76, often consults her neighborhood diabetologist and gets tested at a lab in her vicinity. “Getting access to those lab results due to interoperability is now a piece of cake and I don’t have the slightest of doubts about my tele-session with Jane”, concludes Dr. O’Connor.
Rural populations benefit from TEFCA compliant Telehealth
Rural healthcare is challenging for the patient as well as the provider. Digital health tools like remote patient monitoring and telehealth have improved the access to a provider, however, a particular challenge with rural populations remains that the health records tend to be scattered all across neighboring towns. This is because depending on the specialty or appointment availability, the rural patient travels to neighboring towns for care. However, with telehealth platforms becoming interoperable, providers can now not only aggregate patients’ records from other providers, labs, devices, etc but also share the records generated off the tele-session with other providers.
Thumbs up to tele-pediatrics due to TEFCA
“August is flooded with pediatric telemedicine sessions because typically the primary care provider is on vacation or substituting for a colleague”, says Dr. Sudha Pillai, pediatrician delivering care only via telehealth. “Absence of the ‘regular’ physician when a child falls sick can be stressful for the parent and hence, quick dispensation of care assumes importance both physiologically as well as physiologically for the patient and parents. Before the tele-session, to log-in, the parent enters the basic demographic info for the child and that is just enough for TEFCA data to be aggregated and presented for my consultation. It is a seamless process”, concludes Dr. Pillai
Gains in mental health care with interoperability
NAMI states that about 1 in 5 adults have experienced mental illness and thus it is obvious that serving mental care to such a large population is beyond in-person sessions. According to Yale, telemedicine for mental healthcare is working. Mental health patients tend to visit various practitioners and hence, leave traces of records everywhere. TEFCA has enabled telehealth platforms to aggregate records of mental health patients.
*for confidentiality, the real names have purposely been omitted
Trove Health – Leading vendor for healthcare interoperability in USA
Trove Health was founded the on notion of solving provider’s problems in health information exchange by offering plug-n-play API for nationwide bidirectional healthcare interoperability as per CMS guidelines for treatment access as well as patient access! With millions of records exchanged per month & thousands of Care Providers connected, Trove Health not only imports the desired records but also automatically parses them into a format of your preference for ease of consumption.
What providers say about ‘Healthcare interoperability with Trove Health’
Did you not find what you were looking for?
Let one of our friendly support staff assist you. Please fill in the form.
