Participating in an HHS solicitation for NwHIN Direct HISP

In September 2012,  the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published solicitation 2012-Q-49852.   This was a requirement for Health Information Service Provider (HISP) Services and implementation of the Nationwide Health Information Network (NwHIN) Direct Transport Protocol for the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN).   

We decided to bid for the design of this HISP.  The HISP we proposed was designed to allow CDC/NHSN to communicate with around 400 hospitals around the country using the Direct protocol.

We worked hard putting the proposal together for this solicitation.   We felt that the experience we had gathered running large messaging systems and deploying BeDirect, a HISP based on NwHIN Direct specifications, would help in the successful implementation of HISP services for NHSN.

There were more than 18 interested entities that applied for this HHS award.

Although we did not win the award, it was encouraging to know that the highest score was 98 and ours was 91 … or as the CDC contract coordinator put it , we were "the 3rd highest" in the nation. 

This experience was very positive and it allowed us to sharpen our design for our current HISP.  

Year 2012 in review

This is how 2012 went for us:

- Finished a large EHR implementation at a cardiology practice.  We chose eClinicalWorks and went live with the clinical and billing part in August.  We deployed several interfaces: a hospital interface with Parkridge Hospital, and equipment interfaces with CardiacScience devices.

- Helped six providers attest for using their EHR meaningfully (http://www.cms.gov/apps/ehr/)

- Launched -  BeDirect (www.bedirect.co)-  the first NwHIN Direct HISP in Chattanooga and for that matter in the South East Tennessee.  

- Participated in several Direct Connect-a-thons (http://wiki.directproject.org/Dec+2012+Connect-A-Thon)

2012 was a very busy year with very little time to write :-).

-Doru