Transcription Media File Name: Radio-MariannYeager.mp4 Media File ID: Media Duration: 9:27 Order Number: Date Ordered:

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1 Transcription Media File Name: Radio-MariannYeager.mp4 Media File ID: Media Duration: 9:27 Order Number: Date Ordered: Transcription by Speechpad Support questions: Sales questions:

2 Justin: Thank you very much, everybody, and thank you for joining us here in the studio and the thousands listening out there in Internetville. I appreciate it and everybody online. Thank you so much. My next guest is a very good friend, Mariann Yeager, CEO of Sequoia Project. Welcome, Mariann. Mariann: Thank you, Justin, for having me. Justin: I think our conversation's probably going to go the direction of interoperability. Mariann: Probably. Justin: Before we begin, when did you get in town? Mariann: I got in town Sunday. Justin: Excellent. And obviously everything's going very well so far. Mariann: Going great. Justin: Excellent. You just had a good meeting, I assume, with the national ONC coordinator. Mariann: We did. Our board had an opportunity to meet with Dr. DeSalvo and her leadership team. It was a very rich and great discussion. Justin: Fantastic. In full disclosure, I'm on your board but I couldn't join that discussion just because we were here live on air. I'm sorry I missed that. Did she talk about the interoperability pledge that's out there? Mariann: She did, she did. They shared a bit about the pledge and what they're trying to accomplish in really catalyzing the industry. We were able to share how we would like to help execute on that. It was great. Justin: That's fantastic. We're following a theme here. Obviously on our show we're focusing now more on interoperability. What are some of the trends that you're seeing certainly among your constituents, either vendors that are engaging Sequoia Project or from communities that are engaging Sequoia Project? What are the trends or even opportunities that you're seeing in healthcare today and health IT today? Mariann: I think probably one of the biggest trends is the progress in providers connecting to different data sharing networks. I think it's not really a question

3 of providers getting connected and starting to share records and production. Of course the ehealth Exchange is one of those networks, but there are lots of other networks that are getting uptake, groups like CommonWell. You have HIEs. You have payor networks. I think that's just a great trend because it shows that there's progress in really moving forward with the more mature data sharing capabilities. And so what we're seeing in terms of an opportunity now is to interconnect those networks. Justin: Yes, love it. I'm a very big supporter of that and certainly getting you guys connected with your CommonWell or whoever it is. Mariann: Exactly. Justin: That's fantastic. Mariann: Exactly. Justin: Regarding some of the trends, I guess it comes down to use cases maybe. What are some of the trends in what they're asking for and what they want to connect regarding? Mariann: Well, the first set of capabilities that folks want to connect for is the ability to access a clinical document. That's sort of current state. But what really appears to be coming in the forefront here is giving consumers the ability to access their own health information so you can use some of the same services and connectivity and just engage the consumer. We think that that's absolutely essential. Another one is image sharing, image exchange. Justin: Yeah, I just read about that the other day. That's actually one of the more trending topics and that's coming more to the forefront. Mariann: Very much so, very much so. Justin: I can certainly see the financial use case there and how that would benefit a lot of people. Mariann: Absolutely. Justin: That's excellent. Diving into Sequoia Project, just in case anybody's not familiar with Sequoia Project, it was Healtheway. It was renamed in the last six to eight months to Sequoia Project. I love the name, by the way. Mariann: Thank you.

4 Justin: But tell us, what are some of the ways that Sequoia Project supports healthcare and interoperability in our country today? Mariann: Sure. We do support multiple independent initiatives - the ehealth Exchange, and Carequality, and the new image exchange testing program. Each of those has their own mission and governance in that. But where Sequoia's really applying our efforts now is focusing on four key issues that we think actually have universal benefit and need across the industry, and that's related to how can we improve clinical content. So now that we have all this connectivity, how can we assure that clinicians are actually getting value from that connection? We think we can actually take great strides in that. And then patient matching, of course. We published a paper with the CCC, Care Connectivity Consortium, and so we have an open call for participation in a new work group to disposition the public comments and really put out there some real world rules that can be implemented to improve patient matching, consent. Consent's a big one. We think... Justin: Big time. Mariann: Yeah, exactly. And then, of course, consumer access. Justin: So when either a provider comes to you guys or an EHR company, what are some of the ways they can get most educated in what you guys do? Is it going to the website? Is there somebody they could contact? How does that next step work? I kind of talk to everybody across the spectrum. I always point people almost to you, but you're not the right person. What are some of the next steps to get engaged with Sequoia? Mariann: Well, they could certainly go to our website and sign up to receive updates. We send updates. We have monthly informational calls which are open to the public. Since we are a nonprofit with a public mission, everything we do is public, so our website and our Wikispaces site, you can access a lot of the work products and deliverables and actually engage, participate in the work groups. You don't have to be a member to participate in our work. We can only really accomplish our mission by convening the community, both industry and government. We would just really welcome others to get involved. Justin: Yeah, I think that's one of the real key aspects and why I support Sequoia Project so much. Talk a little bit about your collaboration. You are

5 across so many different groups - public, private, vendors, and health systems, government, everybody. Talk about some of your actors and participants. Mariann: Sure. Sequoia's a nonprofit public private collaborative. That means governmental agencies have an active role on our board of directors and our initiatives. Really our initiative, particularly Carequality, is about across-thespectrum representation across the community. Individuals who represent the interests of consumers and population health and research, the whole care spectrum, payors. We think that's really the key to finding the solution for interoperability. I don't know that I as an individual have all the answers. I wish I did. It's really going to take the collective community and industry and government to solve it. That's really what we're aiming to do. Justin: Fantastic. If you're offering some best practices, because that's my goal here over the next couple of hours and for tomorrow as well is to share actionable intelligence and best practices for health systems and practices and certainly for vendors too. What advice would you offer to a health system that knows they need to have more interoperability, they need to open access to medical records, obviously in a secure way and the appropriate way? What are some of the best next steps that you would offer to them? Mariann: You can't really have trust and exchange without a governance and a trusted framework. Whether that is through a network or across networks, there are several options out there of course. We support initiatives that have such an engagement. If you really want that open trust and exchange, you have to have a comprehensive legal framework and trusted exchange framework and agreement. Justin: And that's what you guys offer. Mariann: That's what we offer. Justin: That's fantastic. For EHR companies, what would be a great next step? What's the main business case where they would want to engage you? Obviously they might get pulled in for different reasons. What are the top two or three things? Because obviously as I have these on the show or I meet with them out in the industry and they're listening here online, what are some of the best cases or use cases for the EHR companies to engage you guys? Mariann: I think the best use case is really around the query for documents. That's probably the most prevalent use case. That's really operationalized across the industry. Our initiatives have connectivity...the ehealth Exchange alone connects almost 50% of all US hospitals and 26,000 medical groups.

6 Justin: That's amazing. Mariann: When you compound that network-to-network connectivity, Carequality already is interconnecting or has the ability, will interconnect 300,000 providers. Being able to tap into an endeavor really driven by the industry and community and to sort of get that real-world traction almost immediately is very compelling. Justin: Yeah. That's what brought me to even talk to you guys years ago under the Greenway umbrella was because of that network. Now it's much larger. You just touched on it. In closing, tell us about the breadth and depth. I don't think people realize how connected and interoperable the Sequoia network and family is. Tell everybody how large that network is today. Mariann: Sure. The ehealth Exchange is a network. It just celebrated its seventh year anniversary of production with the MedVirginia Social Security Administration. That network alone connects 50% of all US hospitals, about 26,000 medical groups across the care continuum, 3400 dialysis centers, 8300 pharmacies, 4 federal agencies, the Veterans Health Administration, the DOD, CMS, Social Security Administration. Again, Carequality recognizes that there's not going to be a single network, there's not going to be a single service, and that we need to as an industry figure out how to interconnect them. Carequality is sort of building upon that and bringing together 10 networks. Again, that connects about 300,000 providers, 1800 hospitals, and 100 million patients. Justin: That's fantastic. Mariann Yeager, CEO of Sequoia Project, thank you so much for joining me today on air. Mariann: Thank you, Justin. It's a pleasure. Justin: You got it. We'll see you soon, I'm sure. Mariann: All right, take care.