The Importance of standardized health ID cards for the NHIN

张琨

Perspective: The Importance of standardized health ID cards for the national health information network Channel

WEDI, the Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange, has been steadily and quietly working on setting a voluntary industry standard for health identification cards.


The Health Identification Card Standardization Ad Hoc Panel of major stakeholders convened in early November to agree on the specification for combining a health insurance card with a financial card, standards for machine-readable technology on the health ID card, and quantitative cost and benefit analysis for different business scenarios.


WEDI will release a report sometime this month to confirm standards that were proposed in July 2006 and recommend the adoption of an implementation guide for those standards.


WEDI’s work is critical to the building of the infrastructure of the national health information network (NHIN). What’s the connection between a standardized health ID card and NHIN?


One key WEDI discussion has revolved around what in fact a health ID card will do, said Jack Rovner, partner and co-chair of the health law practice group at Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg, LLP. Will it simply be an identification card or the entry to the NHIN?


Rovner sees the health ID card as a “token” or a gateway to access the NHIN, a way to reach all the databases that store a patient’s clinical information, but with the capability of being able to block off certain information from access. “The consensus of the group was that these issues are better addressed by the national infrastructure,” he said.


As the standards organization and stakeholders march down that path, Rovner said we can look to Availity, a joint venture that was formed this year, as a model.


Jointly owned by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida and Humana and the Health Care Service Corp., which operates the Blue Cross and Blue Shields plans in Illinois, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas, Availity provides a gateway for access to not only financial resources but a payer-based health record. “The card itself is an ID card that gets you to the gateway and can help you access data,” said Rovner.


Rovner’s says we are entering the not-too-distant future where we will know via a health ID card, and by definition electronically, who the payer is and what the eligibility and benefits are, and be able to access medical information.


With that in mind, Rovner said standards must be flexible enough to accommodate innovation and new uses—such as the entry point to the NHIN—with a five to 10 year horizon.