WASHINGTON, D.C.—On Monday, Federal Health Architecture (FHA) released CONNECT 4.0, an open source software solution that supports health information exchange both locally and nationally. CONNECT 4.0 can assist eyecare professionals in meeting Meaningful Use criteria in order to qualify for incentive payments for implementing the use of electronic health records.

Federal Health Architecture is managed by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services dedicated to the adoption of health information technology and the promotion of nationwide health information exchange.

CONNECT 4.0, the latest release of CONNECT, supports current federal information technology standards and Meaningful Use Stage 2 core objectives related to the secure electronic exchange of information through CONNECT’s support of Direct project specifications and Nationwide Health Information Network transports (for example, electronically sending and receiving patient data, transitioning to a new provider and patient access to data). In addition, its modular platform allows users to pick and choose which components they want to use in their information technology environment.

Additional features of CONNECT 4.0 allow users to exchange large files up to 1 GB, receive higher message volume of more than 1,600 messages per minute and integrate CONNECT into whole-system monitoring.