phiMail™ Direct Messaging and phiCert™ Identity Services Receive Direct Trusted Agent Accreditation Program (DTAAP) Triple Accreditation as Health Information Service Provider (HISP), Certification Authority, and Registration Authority

SAN DIEGO, February 14, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- EMR Direct, a leading developer of Direct messaging software and provider of Direct HISP and identity services for the secure exchange of Protected Health Information (PHI) over the Internet, has received full accreditation through the Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission (EHNAC) Direct Trusted Agent Accreditation Program (DTAAP). EMR Direct's practices were audited against over two hundred technical, physical, and operational criteria and found to be fully in compliance with HIPAA/HITECH, the Direct Project standards, DirectTrust policies, and other measures prescribed by DirectTrust and EHNAC.

Direct Messaging solves the historically expensive problem of securely transferring information across different vendors and healthcare systems, promoting broad interoperability. The EHNAC symbol has become synonymous with compliance in healthcare-related data transfer procedures, and DirectTrust/EHNAC DTAAP accreditation, endorsed by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), is the industry-accepted stamp of approval for objective review of Direct services. "The accreditation of EMR Direct's HISP, CA, and RA services demonstrates their adherence to a higher standard of quality, privacy, security, and confidentiality, as well as data management, and their compliance with HIPAA and HITECH," says Lee Barrett, Executive Director of EHNAC.

DirectTrust, an independent non-profit trade association with over 100 member organizations, establishes policies to promote security and trust in Direct messaging. An early member of DirectTrust, EMR Direct has been an active participant in this process, and EMR Direct CTO Luis Maas currently serves as Co-Chair of the DirectTrust Security and Trust Compliance Workgroup. "EMR Direct consistently brings an impressive level of technical expertise in both Direct messaging and public key cryptography to the DirectTrust community, and has played an important leadership role in the development of many DirectTrust policies," says David C. Kibbe, MD, President and CEO, DirectTrust. "EMR Direct clearly wants interoperability to 'just work', and actively collaborates with other members to make Direct scale across the nation. Accreditation plays an important part in achieving these goals and growing the DirectTrust Network."

"The rigorous criteria for DTAAP accreditation help standardize best practices for the large number of moving parts involved in Direct messaging, a high priority towards achieving true health data liquidity, and providing better care at a lower cost," says Julie Maas, CEO of EMR Direct. "The EMR Direct phiMail platform receives excellent feedback from EHR developers and has been easily integrated into dozens of EHR products and healthcare applications seeking to meet the Direct messaging requirements for Stage 2 of Meaningful Use. Our phiMail HISP has been successfully tested in over a dozen EHR certifications for MU2, with many more certifications scheduled in coming months. EMR Direct's strengths include our easy integration Direct messaging API and connector libraries for multiple application frameworks, ongoing product enhancements based on customer feedback, helpful MU2 certification and other Direct messaging product documentation, high-touch customer support, and industry-leading capabilities such as built-in handling of separate signing and encryption keys, two factor authentication, XDR support, and trust policies tailored to customers' business needs."

About EMR Direct
EMR Direct is headquartered in San Diego, California, and provides Direct messaging services, Direct addresses, and, through its phiCert Certification Authority, the supporting public key infrastructure (PKI) required for Direct exchange. With the goal of simplifying interoperability and enabling custom workflows, phiMail is easy to deploy and does not require expensive, one-off, peer-to-peer interfaces. EMR Direct is committed to protecting patient privacy, improving the quality and coordination of care, increasing productivity, and reducing costs. As part of this commitment, the EMR Direct management team actively participates in numerous government-sponsored and industry workgroups to help refine, expand, and govern the use of Direct messaging. More information may be found at http://www.emrdirect.com. Healthcare providers and IT professionals may request evaluation software by registering for a developer or production account.

About DirectTrust and EHNAC
DirectTrust is an independent non-profit trade association created by and for participants in the Direct community, to establish and maintain a national Security and Trust framework in support of Direct exchange. EHNAC is an independent, federally recognized, standards development organization and accrediting body designed to improve transactional quality, operational efficiency, and data security in healthcare.

Trademark Notice: phiMail and phiCert are trademarks of EMR Direct.