Whitepaper
What is a HISP?
A Health Information Services Provider (HISP) is an organization that manages security and transport for health information exchange among health care entities or individuals using the Direct standard for transport. Â There is no specific legal designation for a HISP, nor are HISPs specifically regulated by Meaningful Use certification rules. Â The term HISP was coined to describe specific message transport functions that need to be performed to support scaled deployment of the Direct standard in the market. Â HISP functions can be performed by existing organizations (such as EHR vendors or hospitals or HIE organizations) or by standalone organizations specializing in HISP services. HISPs perform two key functions that support scalability of exchange using the Direct standard.
What happens inside the HISP?
A message is delivered via SMTP+S/MIME to a HISP; the received message is decrypted via a private key store.
The intended recipient’s address is verified via an address book database.
The metadata from the XDM is extracted and converted to an XDR format.
This message is then sent over TLS to an EHR, which then delivers it to a Direct Message Recipient.
