Civitas Selects Tech Partner for National PCDH Interoperability Initiative

At its annual conference, Civitas Networks for Health and the Patient Centered Data Home (PCDH) Governance Council announced that they have selected Velatura Public Benefit Corporation as the national technology solution partner to support the PCDH initiative.  

PCDH is a collaboration of over 45 health information exchanges (HIEs) facilitating critical alerts to providers for millions of clinical encounters every month. The continued growth of PCDH will further advance regional and nationwide interoperability progress, officials say.

The Civitas and PCDH Governance Council partnership with Velatura is set to further PCDH goals to ensure that the data exchange among Civitas members continues to support coordination across the care continuum.

“Civitas and the PCDH Governance Council are committed to collaboration and to positioning all Civitas members for future success,” Lisa Bari, CEO of Civitas, said in a press release. “After careful consideration, we have identified Velatura to deploy a new centralized technology platform for the national PCDH network.”

“Velatura brings longstanding commitment to PCDH and the HIE space alongside technology and boots-on-the-ground experience,” Bari added. “We believe their cloud-native technology platform will enable us to transition current functionality swiftly while positioning ourselves for emerging market opportunities, all while honoring the critical role HIEs play in linking existing communities of trust and preserving local governance.”

Velatura expects that this relationship will provide an opportunity for all Civitas member HIEs, regional health improvement collaboratives, community information exchanges, and aspiring health data utilities to enhance interstate health data exchange and health improvement activities. 

“The national PCDH network opportunity with Velatura builds on the early success and vision of the PCDH members and is a critical step toward leveraging HIE-powered interstate data exchange at national scale to further interoperability, impact national public health efforts, and harness the true scalability of the cloud,” said Tim Pletcher, CEO of Velatura.

Pletcher noted that Velatura believes ADT data has enormous potential to advance national interoperability, inform public health efforts, and support emergency response.

“What began as a vision to make sure that a care team could get ADT notifications and other key clinical data for a patient who is seen while traveling across state lines or between regions can now evolve to solve a myriad of local and national health challenges,” said Keith Kelley, COO of Indiana Health Information Exchange (IHIE) and chair of the PCDH Governance Council. 

The PCDH Governance Council, Civitas, and Velatura are working on the details of the consolidated national PCDH network structure, including legal, compliance, and technology.