ONC Awards The Sequoia Project Contract to Continue TEFCA RCE Role

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) has awarded The Sequoia Project a five-year contract to continue serving as the recognized coordinating entity (RCE) for the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA).

TEFCA aims to create a network of networks to support national healthcare interoperability. In 2019, ONC selected The Sequoia Project as the TEFCA RCE after a competitive process during which dozens of organizations supported the non-profit’s application.

“The Sequoia Project and our RCE team are extremely proud of TEFCA’s progress to date, and we look forward to bringing its promise and benefits to reality soon,” Mariann Yeager, CEO of The Sequoia Project, said in a public statement. “We couldn’t have gotten this far without close collaboration with ONC and the candidate QHINs (Qualified Health Information Networks).”

“We’ve engaged stakeholders throughout the development process to engender public trust and instill a sense of ownership for future QHINs,” she added. “We look to the coming months and years where this multi-year vision becomes a reality.”

As the TEFCA RCE, The Sequoia Project has been committed to transparency and broad stakeholder engagement, officials noted.  

Over the last four years, The Sequoia Project has engaged thousands of people and hosted more than 70 public stakeholder engagement events to receive input on TEFCA processes and share updates about TEFCA’s progress.

In January 2022, ONC and The Sequoia Project released TEFCA and began accepting applications for QHIN candidates later that year.

In February 2023, Xavier Becerra, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), announced the first six candidate QHINs approved for onboarding.

The candidates stated their intentions to complete testing and onboarding for a planned TEFCA go-live by the end of 2023. Currently, seven candidate QHINs are in various testing and onboarding stages.