Consensus on Digital Certificates Should Boost Direct Project Messaging

Ken Terry | Fierce Health IT | October 4, 2011

The Direct Project, the secure clinical messaging protocol introduced earlier this year, has advanced to the next level with the announcement that a workgroup of the Direct Project consortium has reached agreement on a key component of the "trust framework" that will be required for Direct messaging.

The Direct Project Rules of the Road workgroup has formulated a certificate policy that will govern the use of digital certificates when providers exchange messages. These will be used to authenticate the identities of senders and receivers.

Networks known as Health Internet Service Providers, or HISPs, are responsible for the routing and security of the messages between providers. Among other things, a HISP must confirm the identity of the sender's HISP, if it is different from that of the receiver, and encrypt the messages of its subscribers.The new security rules are expected to strengthen trust between HISPs...