Health Gorilla today announced that the PuertoRico Health Information Exchange (PRHIE) intends to participate in Health Gorilla’s anticipated Qualified Health Information Network (QHIN). Health Gorilla’s QHIN application was approved by the Recognized Coordinating Entity (RCE), and announced at a celebratory event in Washington, D.C., on February 13, 2023. Health Gorilla will now begin the onboarding process, which must be successfully completed in order to be designated as a QHIN.
Health Gorilla is the health information exchange platform for the Puerto Rico Department of Health (PRDOH),facilitating trusted data exchange for more than 430 care sites, 70 hospitals, and more than 9,000 providers. The collaboration includes connections among government agencies, pharmacies, diagnostic laboratories, claims clearinghouses, public registries, and health technology companies, ensuring a robust and secure environment for healthcare innovation and patient care in Puerto Rico.
“As healthcare organizations seek secure, compliant ways of participating in national health data exchange, HealthGorilla is dedicated to meeting their needs,” said Steve Yaskin, CEO and co-founder of Health Gorilla. “With our QHIN application officially approved, we are proud to have the Puerto Rico Department of Health on board.”
“Making patient health information more readily available to medical professionals has improved the quality of patient care throughout Puerto Rico,” said Alexander Quevedo, State HIT Coordinator at Puerto Rico Department of Health. “We were thrilled to hear about HealthGorilla’s application approval, and we look forward to participating in HealthGorilla’s QHIN if designated.”
Part of the 21st Century Cures Act,TEFCA will create a national floor for interoperability across the UnitedStates, enabling more streamlined health data exchange. The Sequoia Project, which was designated by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT(ONC) as TEFCA’s Recognized Coordinating Entity (RCE), recently announced Health Gorilla as one of the first set of applicant networks to be approved for onboardingas a prospective Qualified Health Information Network.
With the application approval, Health Gorilla successfully fulfilled the governance, functional, and operational requirements for approval to serve as aQHIN under TEFCA and must now complete testing and onboarding before moving forward in the process toward official designation later this year.
Once QHINs are fully implemented, Health Gorilla will act as a connectivity broker to enable nationwide data exchange for an expanding set of healthcare organizations, supporting permitted purposes such as Treatment, Individual Access Services, Payment, Health Care Operations, Public Health, and PublicBenefit Determination.
Through its collaboration with the Puerto RicoDepartment of Health, Health Gorilla will continue to expand the landscape ofinteroperability throughout Puerto Rico while ensuring adherence to the 21st Century Cures Act and TEFCA standards.
AboutHealth Gorilla
Founded in 2014, Health Gorilla is a NationalHealth Information Network (HIN) and interoperability platform providingpermitted access to actionable patient data. With enterprise-grade clinicaldata APIs and an unparalleled master patient index, the Health Gorilla networkmakes it easy for providers to pull their patient's information from anyclinical records system. For more information, visit healthgorilla.com orfollow us on Twitter @HealthGorilla.
About the Puerto Rico Health Information Exchange
The Puerto Rico Health Information Exchange(PRHIE) makes patient health information available to doctors, nurses,hospitals, and health care organizations or providers electronically whennecessary to care for the patient. Sharing of patient information is protectedby strict procedures to safeguard the privacy and confidentiality of records.The PRHIE mission is to improve the speed, quality, safety, and cost of patientcare.
