GOVERNOR
/ State of California
CALIFORNIA OFFICE OF HEALTH INFORMATION INTEGRITY /
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: (916) 654-3304
May 6, 2013
California Releases Updated Model Participants Agreement
With the Goal of Accelerating Ubiquitous and Appropriate Exchange
Broad Base of Health Care Stakeholders Involved in Design; Comments Urged
The California Health and Human Services Agency’s (CHHS), Office of Health Information Integrity (CalOHII) today announced the release of an updated Model Modular Participant Agreement (MMPA). Following the release of the MMPA Release 1 last year, the California Office of Health Information Integrity (CalOHII) received input from over one hundred stakeholders. A new task force was formed to craft a Business Associate Contract reflecting compliance with the Omnibus Final Rule published in late January 2013. This Task Force also revisited the MMPA’s language in relation to InterHIO agreements in anticipation of future work.
The MMPA supports uniformity in agreements by pioneering the minimum standards for Participant Agreements (PAs) so that health information organizations (HIOs) both large and small can establish data agreement terms in an efficient way to connect market dominant players not only with each other but also with unconnected entities.
“Point-to-point agreements are no more. We have to figure out how to make trust scalable,” noted Robert Cothren, PhD of the California Health eQuality (CheQ). Describing the logic of scalable trust, Rim added, “You have a collection of organizations that have to voluntarily adopt a common set of processes. The MMPA starts to identify what are the common set of processes. When everybody starts using them, we will have a path to scalable trust.”
The agreement and background on the MMPA can be accessed on the CalOHII website: [insert link]. The 30 day public comment period will be open from May 1, 2013 through May 30, 2013. The task force is continuing to analyze interHIO agreements to craft additional modules that will establish terms and conditions that can be applied to a continuum of different modes of exchange.