At a glance
Many organizations work together to protect and advance the public’s health. These organizations operate a wide variety of public health information systems and need to reliably exchange critical and sensitive data among their disparate systems. Rather than attempting to integrate the various systems, organizations typically create messages that can be exchanged over the Internet with a variety of partners. These messages are comprised of standard content and vocabulary, and are implemented in a range of formats, including HL7, XML, image files, CSV files, and so on.
Overview
The effective exchange of these messages necessitates a bi-directional and secure messaging platform that can provide a common approach to security requirements (such as encryption and authentication), as well as a standard method for addressing and routing content. Such exchanges also require auditing capability and a consistent way to send and receive data exchange confirmations.
The Public Health Information Network Messaging System (PHINMS) is the CDC-provided software that fulfills this critical need for public health. Employing Electronic Business using Extensible Markup Language (ebXML) technology, PHINMS can securely send and receive any message type over the Internet, facilitating interoperability among myriad public health information systems.