On Jan. 18, the long-awaited Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA), mandated by the 21st Century Cures Act in 2016, was released by the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) and its Recognized Coordinating Entity (RCE), the Sequoia Project.

More than a year after the first draft of the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA) was published, the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health Information Technology (HIT) is back with a second draft.

I recently had cause to wonder about the progress we’re making on the path to interoperability through “the woods” of healthcare information exchange (HIE).

  In accordance with the 21st Century Cures Act, The Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health Information Technology has released the draft version of the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA).

 Previously, in “TEFCA: A beginning for nationwide interoperability ,” we discussed the basics of the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA), an ambitious plan assembled by The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) to provide an “on-ramp” to nationwide interoperability for healthcare data.