CareSpark’s Secure Messaging Architecture
CARESPARK’S PLATFORM SUPPORTS exchange of Direct Project–compliant messages between its connected provider community and external business partners. Messages received securely over the Internet are routed through CareSpark directly into
provider EHR systems or to CareSpark’s Web-based clinician portal. The cloud-based solution reduces logistical and technological headaches that often slow the adoption of HIE technology.
CareSpark HISP
Direct.CareSpeak.Com
Direct Reference Implementation
Configuration Web UI
Intelligence
Engine
Connected
EHRs
Operations Web UI
Enterprise
Access UI
CareSpark Internet
secure e-mail servers
Exchange Partners
Internet
dard format. ;e open-source gateway software, with separate
releases for the popular Java and .net software development
platforms, has already sped Direct’s adoption.
Direct is near the end of its development runway and poised
to take o;. Nearly a dozen di;erent communities demonstrated
Direct exchange at an ONC-sponsored interoperability showcase this past February. Projects in Minnesota and Rhode Island
are in pilot production, and six more projects are working toward production operations. A number of health IT vendors are
working to incorporate Direct in their products.
Direct is di;erent because it supports critical business ;ows
in the healthcare ecosystem that can be quickly measured to establish e;ciency, accuracy, and cost savings (e.g., replacing fax
machines and couriers). It lends itself to the clinical and business ;ows that today’s healthcare system is coming to embrace.
Stakeholders in the industry are ready and willing to partially
or fully subsidize the cost of these sorts of electronic exchanges.
;eir reasons vary from developing physician a;nity through
orders, referrals, and results ;ows to squeezing operational savings out of results delivery to capturing and digitizing clinical
dialogs that will be critical to accountable care organizations
and similar entities.
Clinician Portal
The Direct Project at CareSpark
With these business and technical innovations in mind, CareSpark has implemented a Direct Project addition to its existing
standards-based HIE network. Teamed with its cloud-based
secure messaging service provider, CareSpark o;ers health information service provider capability that supports the bidirectional exchange of data between providers and their systems.
;e addition of Direct and the secure messaging network gives
CareSpark and its participating providers a means to push data
between systems, often in unsolicited transactions.
Following its architecture principles that stress the importance of interoperable, standards-based technology, CareSpark
implements Direct in a way that allows access by current stan-dards-compliant systems as well as older legacy systems. ;is
approach has worked in the past for CareSpark. Its network allows interconnectivity of Cross-Enterprise Document Sharing
(XDS)-compliant systems and also o;ers “adapters” that connect noncompliant software.
;is approach aligns with the industry direction while maintaining a low barrier to provider participation. Providers with
nonstandards-compliant systems may participate in exchange
as best they can. As an example, CareSpark might support the
translation of an HL7 message into a Direct message on be-
