Driving the future of interoperability with TEFCA

Leading the way in TEFCA™: Why interoperability is core to curing complexity for physicians

As someone who has spent the last decade working to advance interoperability in healthcare, I’ve seen our industry make meaningful progress. National interoperability was built and has been held together by the grit and goodwill of early movers — CommonWell among them — who stepped up to connect a fragmented system. But those dots didn’t cover the whole map. For many clinicians, particularly those in independent ambulatory practices, the complexity of healthcare data exchange continues to create unnecessary friction, administrative burden, and care delays.

That’s why we believe the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA) changes the scale of the conversation.

It’s not about how data moves — it’s about who gets to participate. TEFCA opens the door for more care settings, more vendors, and more use cases. It lays down a common foundation so we can stop stitching together point solutions and start building true national connectivity.

This isn’t a compliance play. It’s a coordination moment — one that rewards those who are ready to lead.

At athenahealth, we’re not just participating in TEFCA. We’re operationalizing it — at scale, in workflows, and in ways that simplify care for physicians and patients alike.

What TEFCA means for clinical data sharing and physician workflows

TEFCA represents the first national, policy-backed effort to unify how healthcare organizations exchange clinical data — regardless of size, vendor, or care setting. It aims to remove fragmentation by creating a standardized, governed, and scalable network of Qualified Health Information Networks (QHINs).

Having served on the board of CommonWell Health Alliance, one of the first designated QHINs under TEFCA, I’ve had a front-row seat to how this framework is being brought to life and what it means for providers and patients.

TEFCA moves us beyond fragmented one-off connections toward a future where information flows freely across systems and vendors without providers needing to chase it down. And it doesn’t stop at provider-to-provider data exchange. With Individual Access Services (IAS), patients have a clear and direct path to access their own health records — no duplicate logins, no guessing where to go.

For physicians, that translates to fewer delays, fewer manual faxes (yes, those still exist), and far less time tracking down patient history during a visit. When paired with the right technology that surfaces relevant information from inside or outside the practice to the point of care, it means walking into the room with a complete picture and spending more time on care, not catching up.

Two approaches to TEFCA and why athenahealth chose CommonWell

As TEFCA adoption grows, we’re seeing different strategies emerge across the health IT industry.

Some EHR vendors, including Epic and eClinicalWorks, are building their own QHINs. This vertically integrated approach means the vendor builds and operates the entire infrastructure for its own network.

At athenahealth, we took a different route, one rooted in our belief in open collaboration and an ecosystem-driven approach. Rather than create a new QHIN, we’re leveraging our long-standing partnership with CommonWell Health Alliance, which has spent over a decade building the very infrastructure TEFCA requires.

Regardless of approach, what really matters is that all QHINs have to exchange data with each other. This ensures providers and patients get the benefits of a truly nationwide, connected network. The more EHRs and health IT companies that join TEFCA, the better it is for everyone in healthcare.

For athenahealth customers, our partnership with CommonWell means:

• No additional layers of integration
• No added burden for practices to “opt in” or configure new systems

In fact, 85,000 athenahealth providers are already connected through TEFCA via CommonWell and we expect to onboard all eligible providers in 2025.

We’re proud to be the first healthcare IT company to implement TEFCA at scale. For our customers, there is no extra integration work, no new workflows, and no separate systems. It just works.

This kind of invisible interoperability, where data flows without the provider needing to think about it, is essential if we want to reduce administrative burden, improve clinical decision-making, and support patient engagement.

The future of interoperability is patient-first

The bigger picture here isn’t about frameworks or networks. It’s about people.

Our long-term vision closely aligns with TEFCA’s purpose: equipping providers with a full view of a patient’s health, and giving patients easy, secure access to their own records.

But realizing that vision takes more than point-to-point connections. It calls for a network-based, standards-driven approach to interoperability that’s built to scale and built to last.

True interoperability means:

• Patients can consolidate their records and access them in tools they already use
• Providers across towns or across states can instantly view the same accurate, up-to-date information
• Care decisions are made with confidence, not assumptions

That’s what connected care should look like. These capabilities build confidence and trust. And it’s how we begin to deliver on the promise of better outcomes, stronger relationships, and more personalized experiences, even when the healthcare system doesn’t always work that way.

Our commitment to getting health information exchange right

At athenahealth, we’ve always believed the future of healthcare will depend on open infrastructure and strong partnerships, not closed networks. We’re building a future where health information exchange is effortless, secure, and invisible to the end user. Our choice to partner with CommonWell and implement TEFCA at scale is testament to that commitment. And it’s already paying dividends in speed, simplicity, and real-world impact for our customers.

We believe healthcare systems should reduce friction, not add to it — and that open, collaborative infrastructure is the only sustainable path forward. But to truly deliver on the promise of nationwide interoperability, we need everyone on board. The more organizations that join TEFCA, the better connected patients and providers will be. As we continue expanding interoperability, our focus remains on curing complexity and letting clinicians focus on care.

Want to learn more?

If you want to understand what TEFCA and our CommonWell partnership mean for your practice, we’re here to help. Let’s make interoperability work for your clinicians, your patients, and your future.