HIT Vendor Alliance Comments On Lifting Interoperability Barriers

The CommonWell Health Alliance, announced in March and comprising a handful of health information technology vendors collaborating to cooperate on systems interoperability issues, has responded to a federal request for information on ways to advance interoperability and health information exchange.

Alliance members--initially Allscripts, athenahealth, Cerner, Greenway Medical Technologies, and McKesson--will define, promote and certify a national infrastructure with common platforms and policies. They have committed to collaborating with all HIT developers and inviting other vendors and stakeholders to join. The alliance is in active discussions with multiple vendors and stakeholders and hopeful that new companies will start to join within weeks, says Justin Barnes, vice president of industry and government affairs at Greenway.