DirectTrust Issues Request for Quote to Establish a DirectTrust Bridge Certification Authority for Healthcare Industry

WASHINGTON, DC--(Marketwired - Feb 9, 2017) - DirectTrust today issued a Request for Quote (RFQ) to establish a DirectTrust Bridge Certification Authority for Healthcare (DT-BCA), marking a major step forward in DirectTrust's continuing efforts to provide secure interoperability solutions for the healthcare industry. DirectTrust is a healthcare industry alliance created by and for participants in the Direct exchange network used for secure, interoperable messaging of personal health information (PHI) between provider organizations, and between provider and patients, for the purpose of improved coordination of care.

The DT-BCA will enable DirectTrust to expand its current standards-based approach to trust and interoperability to a very broad community of healthcare organizations that utilize a public key infrastructure (PKI) for various tasks. It builds on the collective experience of many industries and communities that have leveraged a Bridge Certification Authority to provide strong, policy-based trust, while enabling a trusted path to interoperability with organizations external to that community.

An extension of the existing DirectTrust architecture, the DT-BCA will offer an advanced interoperability solution via a tested policy umbrella to new entrants and new technologies, and extend this interoperability to organizations within the U.S. Federal Government that rely on the information sharing capabilities DirectTrust currently secures.

"The new DirectTrust Bridge CA would open an efficient pathway for healthcare organizations to deploy their PKIs widely for a variety of tasks and use cases, including network authentication, document signing, implementation of private data sharing networks, and interoperable health information exchanges," said DirectTrust President and CEO David C. Kibbe, MD MBA. "The Bridge CA is a logical extension of DirectTrust's current Trust Anchor Bundle infrastructure, highly tuned to healthcare needs, and will be complementary to it. The big difference is that the Bridge CA will more easily allow DirectTrust's PKI to support non-Direct technologies where security, trust and identity are critically important, for example for FHIR queries and Blockchain, and to do so at national scale specifically for the healthcare industry."

Bids from interested service providers and technology operators must be submitted by March 13, with questions due by February 17. DirectTrust will review and consider all responses submitted and anticipates making an award in early April. Additional information about this project and its RFQ requirements can be accessed here.

About DirectTrust
DirectTrust is a five-year old, non-profit, vendor neutral, self-regulatory entity initially created by and for participants in the Direct exchange community, including Health Internet Service Providers (HISPs), Certificate Authorities (CAs), Registration Authorities (RAs), doctors, patients and vendors. DirectTrust supports both provider-to-provider and patient-to-provider Direct exchange. In the period 2013 to 2015, DirectTrust was the recipient of a Cooperative Agreement Award from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) as part of the Exemplar HIE Governance Program. DirectTrust serves as a forum and governance body for persons and entities engaged in the Direct exchange of electronic health information as part of the Nationwide Health Information Network (NwHIN). DirectTrust's Security and Trust Framework is the basis for the voluntary accreditation of service providers implementing Direct health information exchange. The goal of DirectTrust is to develop, promote, and, as necessary, help enforce the rules and best practices necessary to maintain security and trust within the Direct community, consistent with the HITECH Act and the governance rules for the NwHIN established by ONC. DirectTrust is committed to fostering widespread public confidence in the interoperable exchange of health information. To learn more, visit www.directtrust.org.