Cybersecurity News

MedAllies receives accreditation from EHNAC, DirectTrust

By Nicole Freeman

- MedAllies, a provider of Direct services, has received full accreditation from Direct Trusted Agent Accreditation Program (DTAAP) for Certificate Authority (CA), Registration Authority (RA), and Health Information Service Provider (HISP) from DirectTrust.org and the Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission (EHNAC).

DirectTrust and EHNAC accreditation certifies that an organization’s services meet HIPAA and HITECH requirements, industry standards, and Direct Project regulations. EHNAC evaluated MedAllies business, privacy, security, and confidentiality practices, as well as its technical performance and Direct exchange resources. MedAllies’ protect health information (PHI) transfer and managing processes.

Because HISPs interact with HIPAA-protected patient information, exchange participants are under increased pressure to ensure that all transfers are secure and safe from data breaches. Stage 2 Meaningful Use, which came into effect January 1, 2014, requires secure messaging accreditation to protect patient involved in direct messaging exchanges. DirectTrust.org is a non-profit organization dedicated to developing and enforcing security best practices within the Direct community, including HISPs, patients, and doctors. All DirectTrust.org practices are consistent with HITECH and the Nationwide Health Information Network (NwHIM) created by the ONC. DirectTrust.org was selected by the ONC to administer direct exchange certification for HIEs, HISPs and other data exchange entities.

Earlier this week, DataMotion also received DirectTrust and EHNAC certification.

The Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission (EHNAC) is a self-governing standards development organization (SDO) that certifies entities involved in the electronic exchange of healthcare-related data, including HIEs, e-prescribers, and medical billers.

“These accreditations signal to vendors and providers alike that MedAllies Direct provides a very high standard of privacy, security and trust-in-identity,” explains David C. Kibbe, MD, CEO of DirectTrust in a public statement. “This is an important assurance to its customers, but also to information trading partners who know they can trust and rely on MedAllies. That trust translates into cheaper, better, and faster Direct exchange across a national network of accredited Direct service providers,” he says.

MedAllies provides Direct services, and is an ONC Direct Reference Implementation vendor in the Direct Project. MedAllies focuses on interoperability, the improvement of clinical care, and electronic health record (EHR) use and adoption for workflow integration.