Answers about the council and its work

AzHeC — The Arizona Health Interoperability Council — is a neutral, non-profit, statewide convener focused on health information technology and interoperability. It carries the legacy of Arizona Health-e Connection and its statewide health information exchange, 'The Network,' into the era of connected care. The council brings hospitals, clinics, labs, pharmacies, payers, state agencies, and standards bodies to one neutral table to make safe, standards-based exchange of clinical data more comprehensible across Arizona.

It means the council takes no vendor money for endorsements, recommends no commercial products, and holds no allegiance to any single platform. Every position the council takes starts from a published standard — not from what a particular system prefers. Technology and device companies are welcome to participate as observers and contributors, but the council names and endorses no products.

A health information exchange is the connective infrastructure that lets clinical data move between different organizations — hospitals, clinics, labs, and pharmacies — so a patient's information can follow them across the health system. A statewide HIE like 'The Network' supports both directed exchange (sending records to a known recipient) and query-based exchange (looking up records when a patient presents), improving continuity of care. You can read more on our Network program page.

Standards are the shared rules that let different systems understand each other's data. Without them, every connection is a custom, fragile integration. The council focuses on standards such as HL7 v2 and FHIR (for clinical messages and APIs), C-CDA (for clinical documents), UDI (for identifying medical devices), GS1 (for supply-chain identifiers), and NCPDP SCRIPT (for electronic prescribing). Our Standards program explains each in plain language.

Exchange operates under HIPAA's Privacy and Security Rules and related frameworks. In practice that means the minimum-necessary principle, access controls, encryption in transit and at rest, audit logging, and — depending on the model — patient consent governing whether and how data is shared. Sensitive categories such as substance-use treatment records carry additional protections under 42 CFR Part 2. Our privacy and consent pages cover this in detail.

Consent models govern whether your data participates in exchange. Some systems use opt-in (you must affirmatively agree), others opt-out (you participate unless you decline), and some support granular consent over specific data types. The right model is a policy choice with real trade-offs between privacy and continuity of care. The council explains these models neutrally on its Consent & Data-Sharing Models page.

Modern devices — monitors, infusion pumps, remote-monitoring hardware — increasingly produce data that can flow into the electronic health record and the exchange, using standards such as HL7 v2 device messages, IEEE 11073, and FHIR. The council explains the infrastructure that makes this work as an educational matter; it is not a buyer's guide and recommends no specific equipment.

No. The council is in an authority-building, public-interest phase. It publishes educational guidance, convenes stakeholders, and explains standards. It does not sell products, link to storefronts, or recommend any commercial brand. Its independence is the point.

Organizations participate through membership categories aligned to their role — provider, payer, lab and pharmacy, vendor-observer, academic and research, or public-sector. Members gain a seat at the neutral table, standards guidance, and committee participation. Visit our Partners & Members page and reach out through the contact page to find the right category.

Yes. The Resources hub — articles, explainers, the glossary, and publications — is written to make interoperability legible to anyone, including patients, students, clinicians, and administrators. Start with our HL7 & FHIR primer or the glossary of health-IT terms.

The council maintains an evolving library of primers, explainers, position papers, and a periodic interoperability landscape report. These appear across the articles and news streams and are described on the Publications & Reports page, where you can also subscribe for updates.

Use the contact page for general inquiries, council participation or membership, press, or a specific standards question. The council's general address is [email protected]. We aim to respond to every genuine inquiry.