CGI Federal Inc. (CGI) has just announced the release of the latest version of the CONNECT, an open source gateway that is used by hospitals, doctors, insurance companies, and government agencies to support the secure, standards-based exchange of health information.
CONNECT 3.3 is an update that complies with the latest Nationwide Health Information Network (NwHIN) specifications, and provides a valuable way for organizations to embrace the next chapter of the healthcare exchange while protecting their existing system investments.
“The velocity of change in health IT today demands secure, open source solutions to support a wide array of healthcare organizations working to improve healthcare quality for the nation,” said Cheryl Campbell, Senior Vice-President, CGI. “CGI is proud to deliver the latest version of CONNECT with our public and private partners and contribute to the continued adoption of secure, standards-based health information exchange.”
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the Department of Defense (DoD), the Social Security Administration (SSA) as well as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) are currently using CONNECT to interact and exchange health information with thousands of healthcare providers through the NwHIN Exchange, which supports approximately one million patients and beneficiaries.
The updated system also provides for future regional and national rollouts of the program. The CONNECT initiative is led by the Federal Health Architecture (FHA) under the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The software was developed under contract to FHA.