Edifecs Announces use of SpecBuilder by Microsoft BizTalk Server Group
The HIPAA Collaborative launches
a web base community-centric solution
for ramping up, testing and deploying
providers and other trading partners
within the state of Minnesota.
REDMOND, WA (December 6, 2002) --
Edifecs, a leading provider of solutions
for enabling trading partner communities,
today announced that the Minnesota
HIPAA Collaborative, a group of the
state's leading healthcare organizations,
has selected the Edifecs solution
for the groups HIPAA (Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act
of 1996) compliance project.
The HIPAA Act requires the healthcare
industry to adopt national standards
for the electronic exchange of healthcare
data by October 2003. The HIPAA Collaborative
is implementing the Edifecs Enablement
platform as the fundamental technology
behind its HIPAA readiness initiative.
The Collaborative consists of Minnesota's
leading healthcare organizations working
collectively to enable the state's
providers and other covered entities
on HIPAA. The founding members include
Allina, Blue Cross Blue Shield of
Minnesota, DHS of Minnesota, Fairview,
HealthPartners, Mayo Clinics, Medica,
Park Nicollet, and Preferred.
The Edifecs solution offers healthcare
organizations and their trading partners
a complete infrastructure for performing
secure and private online HIPAA data
validation and trading partner certification.
In addition it offers the community
management, program management, and
partner management features necessary
to cover the complete set of steps
for trading community enablement.
The Collaborative will use the Edifecs
solution to define their own set of
HIPAA companion guides with the specific
business requirements of the Collaborative's
members. The Collaborative will then
use the Edifecs solution to create
multiple online communities where
providers and other organizations
can come and review the guidelines,
access community resources, and test
for compliance.
The solution will enable the Collaborative's
users to validate all the HIPAA implementation
guidelines as well as the newly released
addenda including validation of over
fifty HIPAA related code-sets. Testing
will include not only the base EDI
testing, but also integrity testing,
requirements testing, balancing, external
code set testing, product types testing,
and trading partner specific testing.
"The collaborative is an outstanding
example of how individual providers
and health plans are able to work
together to effectuate change,"
said John Ounjian, senior vice president
and CIO at Blue Cross and Blue Shield
of Minnesota. "The work of the
coalition offers a model for effective
relationships across health care stakeholder
groups that result in a positive impact
on health care operations and ultimately,
an improved care experience for the
health care consumer."
"RX2000 will apply the Edifecs
HIPAA Enablement solution CommerceDesk
for implementing the Provider trading
community within Minnesota. This web
based solution offers a significant
ROI and a powerful framework to realize
the collaborative goals. We believe
the MN HIPAA Collaborative and the
Edifecs solution will serve as a model
for the rest of the country on how
the states can effectively and efficiently
implement HIPAA effectively and efficiently
for a very large trading community",
said Mike DeWane, CEO of RX2000.
Edifecs Chief Executive Sunny Singh
said, "The Collaborative's decision
to use Edifecs enablement solution
makes it possible for the like minded
members of the Collaborative to work
together with the provider community
to achieve their individual as well
as collective goals for HIPAA compliance.
The ROI is tremendous."
About HIPAA Collaborative
of Minnesota
Minnesota healthcare organizations
have formed the Minnesota HIPAA Collaborative,
a coalition dedicated to helping providers
and health plans accomplish timely
and cost-effective implementation
of the HIPAA transactions, codes,
and identifier standards. The collaborative
will promote HIPAA transaction readiness,
identify best practices and recommend
solutions.
The Collaborative consists of Minnesota
health plan and provider organizations.
The Collaborative is independent and
not associated with any professional
organization. Founding members formed
this collaborative with the goal of
sharing their work products with the
public.
Founding members include: Allina
Hospitals and Clinics, Blue Cross
and Blue Shield of Minnesota, an independent
licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue
Shield Association, Fairview Health
Services, HealthPartners, Mayo Foundation,
Medica, Park Nicollet Health Services,
PreferredOne.
Government Participants include
Minnesota Department of Human Services
The Minnesota HIPAA Collaborative
is focused on developing collaborative
work products and recommended practices
for achieving HIPAA compliance with
transactions, code sets and standard
identifiers. The Collaborative intends
to share these work products with
Minnesota's healthcare community through
a public website (www.mnhipaacollab.org)
and communications program. The geographical
focus of the Collaborative is the
state of Minnesota and the surrounding
areas that serve Minnesota residents.
About Edifecs
Edifecs (http://www.edifecs.com)
is a proven provider of solutions
for rapidly deploying and managing
today's trading partner networks.
The Edifecs enablement solution suite
encompasses the CommerceDesk™,
SpecBuilder™, and XEngine product
families -- all designed to reduce
cost and time-to-market for companies
deploying trading partner networks.
The Edifecs HIPAA solution provides
enablement technologies to accelerate
the implementation of HIPAA and healthcare
trading communities. HIPAADesk.com (www.HIPAADesk.com),
powered by Edifecs CommerceDesk,
is the first free and full service
HIPAA compliance checking & testing
facility for the healthcare industry.
Founded in 1996, Edifecs serves an
installed base of more than 1,200
customers and partners including numerous
B2B providers such as GE Global eXchange
Services, Microsoft, Harbinger/Inovis,
Quovadx, Sterling Commerce and TIBCO.
Edifecs healthcare clients include
Abbot Labs, Baxter Healthcare, BCBS
Association, BCBS of Alabama, BCBS
of Georgia, HealthPartners and many
others. Edifecs is a technology partner
for more than 30 industry consortia
including RosettaNet, ebXML, UN/CEFACT,
CompTIA, and OBI. Based in Redmond,
Washington, Edifecs is privately held.
For more information regarding Edifecs solutions click here.
SpecBuilder, XEngine, CommerceDesk
& HIPAADesk are trademarks of
Edifecs.
All other company and product names
are the property of their respective
owners.
Edifecs Contact:
public Relations
Edifecs Inc.
pr@edifecs.com
