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Press Releases
BOSTON, MA - July 19, 2004 -
The Open Group and Massachusetts Health Data Consortium (MHDC)
today announced the launch of a certification program which
guarantees the interoperability of e-mail products that encrypt
e-mail at the organization boundary to ensure the privacy
of information carried by e-mail across public networks, and
awarded certificates to BT Syntegra and Tumbleweed Communications
Inc., vendors of the first two products to be certified within
the program, and reported statements of commitment to participation
in the program from two other vendors, Zix Corporation (ZixCorp)
and NetIQ Corporation.
The S/MIME Gateway Certification program was developed by
The Open Group in direct response to a requirement from MHDC
whose members need to ensure the privacy of Private Health
Information to conform to the provisions of the HIPAA regulations,
without the unacceptable management overheads associated with
traditional desktop-based e-mail security solutions.
The Open Group S/MIME Gateway specification establishes an
interoperable profile of the S/MIME Gateway specifications
from IETF and adds a simple protocol for the exchange and
installation of public keys between business partners. Certificates
are awarded to vendors in respect of products that are guaranteed
to conform to the S/MIMEGateway specification and which have
been tested against other certified products.
Speaking at the launch of the program, Allen Brown, President
and CEO of The Open Group hailed it as a true partnership
between IT customers and product vendors: “This is a
demonstration of how The Open Group is meeting the business
needs of real customers. MHDC approached us with a problem
their members were having. We worked together and jointly
found the right solution that best meets their needs: a certification
program that enables health care providers to protect private
health data while keeping their costs manageable.” Brown
also stressed the significance of MHDC’s active participation:
“The role they played in scoping the requirement and
demonstrating the market for conformant products was key to
the success of the project.”
Elliot Stone, Executive Director and CEO of MHDC, provided
this perspective: “The healthcare industry is increasingly
using technology to support the patient care process and reduce
medical errors. However, an obstacle to the proliferation
of technology has been the need to assure that personal health
information is private and secure as it is electronically
communicated among the key healthcare stakeholders: physicians,
hospitals, health plans, and patients. Although our CIOs in
Massachusetts recognized that S/MIME Gateways would provide
a cost effective solution to secure email, the vendor offerings
in the marketplace were not compatible. The Open Group provided
the critical element to overcome this obstacle – a collaborative
process to developing standards and implementing a vendor
certification program.”
" We support The Open Group's initiative to establish
a certification program for this type of secure communication,"
said Rick Spurr, President and Chief Operating Officer for
ZixCorp. "All efforts to ensure interoperability and
develop standards will benefit both vendors and end users
alike."
NetIQ confirmed today that they are in the process of certifying
NetIQ MailMarshal Secure under The Open Group’s new
S/MIME Gateway Certification program.
“ The ability to ensure secure email delivery is growing
in importance. Our enterprise customers must show that they
comply with regulations such as HIPAA, and they therefore
require encrypted email capabilities,” said Jim McGrath,
Senior Director of Product Management at NetIQ. “However,
prior to The Open Group’s development and subsequent
announcement of this new standard, interoperability was a
major concern industry-wide. NetIQ has seen success in assisting
to create a secure, yet interoperable messaging systems.”
The Open Group is a vendor-neutral and technology-neutral
consortium, which drives the creation of Boundaryless Information
Flow™ that will enable access to integrated information
within and between enterprises based on open standards and
global interoperability. The Open Group works with customers,
suppliers, consortia and other standard bodies. Its role is
to capture, understand and address current and emerging requirements,
establish policies and share best practices; to facilitate
interoperability, develop consensus, and evolve and integrate
specifications and open source technologies; to offer a comprehensive
set of services to enhance the operational efficiency of consortia;
and to operate the industry’s premier certification
service.
Note to Editors: Boundaryless Information
Flow is a trademark of The Open Group.
The Massachusetts Health Data Consortium was founded in 1978
by the state's major public and private healthcare organizations
to serve as a neutral agency to collect, analyze and disseminate
health care information. In 1995, Elliot M. Stone, the Consortium’s
CEO, helped found the Affiliated Health Information Networks
of New England project, a collaborative effort currently consisting
of the chief information officers of 37 healthcare organizations
and 10 information technology companies/consultants. The mission
of the Affiliated Networks is “to improve the region’s
health care information infrastructure by fostering the growth
of a variety of health information networks, building on systems
already in place, while encouraging collaboration and standardization
among these networks.” (See http://www.mahealthdata.org)
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