NwHIN Specifications Factory & Testing Group

The Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) describes the Nationwide Health Information Network (NwHIN) as a "network of networks" which will support meaningful use by connecting diverse entities that need to exchange health information. This all begins at the local level, where clinicians enter data that populates community and/or state exchanges. The standards and specifications being defined and tested at the NwHIN level will need to be utilized at the community and state level to enable

Work on the NwHIN continues at a vigorous pace. There are dozens of workgroups and teams working on a gamut of aspects from Policy, Data Use and Reciprocal Support Agreements, Technical Architecture, Privacy and Security, Patient Identification, User Authentication, etc., to ensure clinical data is shared accurately and privately.

Here's a quick summary of the latest activities of two of the technical teams: the Specifications Factory and the Testing Group.

Specifications Factory

Specifications Factory Efforts

The Specifications Factory is tasked with identifying, developing and managing technical specifications for the NwHIN. The primary objectives are to:

• Stabilize the core NwHIN platform and services so there is a common baseline that can be utilized for large-scale production going forward without requiring continuous reinvestment in development to maintain NwHIN compliance
• Further align NwHIN specifications to ongoing work by HITSP, IHE and HL7 with respect to information discovery, exchange and privacy
• Provide the necessary specifications to support those organizations who have committed to implement NwHIN services on a limited production basis.

Specifications Factory Team Members

This team is led by the ONC and consists of HIE Implementers and industry experts from the public and private sectors. NCHICA subcontractor and member IBM contributes much technical expertise to this team. It consists of the following sub teams: Messaging, Information Services,
Privacy & Identification Management, Security, Profile Development, Content, and Architecture & Implementation Guidance Workgroup.

Dates of Interest

• January 2010: NwHIN Specifications are expected to be published and will be stable for at least 18 months.
• February 2010: Reference Implementation document available, which will provide guidance for connecting to the NwHIN Gateway. Participants can use the existing NwHIN Connect 2.3 open source connection, or create their own.

Testing Group

Test Team Efforts

The Test Team is tasked with establishing procedures and tools for determining potential NwHIN participant's technical eligiblility to become a member of the NwHIN. This testing is performed by validating conformance to NwHIN specifications and underlying standards. Since conformance does not guarantee interoperability, testing the interoperability of the NwHIN participants is also required.

Test Team Members

This team is led by ONC and consists of HIE implementers, providers, and other industry experts from the public and private sectors. NCHICA members HealthBridge and IBM are active participants on this team. The test team consists of the following sub teams: Core Artifacts, Test Data/Test Cases and Testing Automation.