Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN): Scope of Activities

The Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN) is built upon a core set of capabilities.

In its current phase, the NHIN establishes a set of core capabilities to enable nationwide information exchange encompassing a diverse set of organizations, technologies and approaches. Core capabilities include:

• Ability to find and retrieve healthcare information within and between health information exchanges and other organizations
• Ability to deliver a summarized patient record to support patient care and to support the patient’s health.
• Ability to support consumer preferences regarding the exchange of his or her information, including the ability to choose not to participate in the NHIN
• Support secure information exchange
• Support of a common trust agreement that establishes the obligations and assurances to which all NHIN participants agree
• Ability to match patients to their data without a national patient identifier
• Support of harmonized standards, which have been developed by voluntary consensus standards bodies for exchange of health information among all such entities and networks.

The core capabilities of the NHIN establish an interoperable infrastructure among distinct networks and systems that allows for different approaches and implementations, while ensuring secure information exchange as needed for patient care and population health.

Priority Areas (Use Cases)

In addition to the core capabilities, the Trial Implementation of the NHIN also supports a set of use cases as recommended by the American Health Information Community (AHIC) in order to address key priority areas, including:

• Emergency Responder-Electronic Health Record
• Consumer Empowerment-Consumer Access to Clinical Information
• Medication Management
• Quality
• Personalized Healthcare
• Public Health Case Reporting
• Response Management
• Remote Consultation
• Remote Monitoring
• Referrals and Transfer of Care