Healthcare providers need to have secure and trusted information exchange with human services organizations to help best address certain needs of their patients.  With the broad deployment of Direct Secure Messaging throughout healthcare, Direct also can be extended to human services organizations as an easy, low-cost, secure, expeditious, and convenient communication mechanism, acting as a bridge between healthcare and human services to address a patient’s social determinants of health (SDoH).  DirectTrust Standards is pleased to announce the upcoming launch of the Information Exchange for Human Services Consensus Body to determine how Direct Secure Messaging can best be profiled for use in human services organizations.

The Information Exchange for Human Services (IX4HS) project will evaluate and identify existing and developing standards (including the Direct Standard™) to create a profile using Direct as the transport mechanism for the secure communication of sensitive information.

The work of IX4HS is not meant to replace or supplant the many groups dedicated to addressing secure information exchange related to SDoH, like The Gravity Project, Project Unify, 360x, and HL7’s SDoH-related work. Rather, IX4HS is meant to focus in on how Direct can work in conjunction with these organizations, teams, standards, and workflows to make the largest and most immediate impact through a profile leveraging Direct.

Additionally, as the Direct Standard™ is a “payload agnostic” protocol, there is an opportunity for Direct to play the transport role for other content standards such as HL7 FHIR or HL7 V2 messages may be incorporated as a part of a new standard or profile.

We’re excited for the possibilities of this new IX4HS Consensus Body and invite you to learn more! Join us for an information session on October 14 at 12 Eastern by registering at bit.ly/IX4HSIS.  Interested in joining the Information Exchange for Human Service (IX4HS) Consensus Body within DirectTrust Standards?* Contact [email protected].

*Note: Human Services Organizations fall into the Consumer Sector and General Interest category of DirectTrust Standards