The Sequoia Project Publishes Guidance on Standardized Privacy & Consent Approaches for State Government and Health Care Organizations

Alignment of Today’s Patchwork Approach Is Necessary for Improved Consent Management

VIENNA, Va., Feb. 09, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, The Sequoia Project, the non-profit that is leading nationwide health information sharing initiatives, published Guidance to States: Legislating Technical Standard Definitions for Existing State-Sensitive Health Data Laws and Operationalizing Automated Consent: Actionable Guidance for Health Care Providers, Payors, and Other Health Care Organizations. These pragmatic guides for industry and government are a follow-up to the non-profit’s Moving Toward Computable Consent: A Landscape Review, a whitepaper published in April 2025 that identifies current challenges to collecting, managing, and honoring patient consent in electronic health information exchange.

The Guidance to States highlights the foundational need to align sensitive health data laws with national technical standards. The included model language is intended to support legislators and lays the foundation for enabling high-confidence, automated systems that apply each state’s privacy rules and respect an individual’s privacy preferences regarding how sensitive health data is shared. The guide’s content benefited from extensive public input during The Sequoia Project’s public feedback period.

“The patchwork of state and federal regulation today hinders the development of computable, automated systems to protect sensitive health data and honors patients' requests to share – or not,” said Melissa Soliz, partner at Coppersmith Brockelman PLC, and co-chair of The Sequoia Project Interoperability Matters Privacy & Consent Workgroup.

The draft Operationalizing Automated Consent paper outlines actions and offers tools for healthcare providers, health systems, payers, and their partners to collect, manage, and honor patient consent confidently, efficiently, and in a computable manner that enables automated processing. The draft, available for public feedback until March 13, 2026, draws on the collective expertise of the workgroup members. Feedback can be submitted to InteropMatters@sequoiaproject.org.

“Taken together, these two guides are practical playbooks for industry and government to work independently and collaboratively to smooth the path to a – hopefully very near – future of automated and computable consent systems,” said Kevin Day, principal business advisor at Edifecs, a Cotiviti business, and co-chair of the Privacy & Consent Workgroup.  

“Privacy and consent are very intimate and personal matters,” said Mariann Yeager, chief executive officer of The Sequoia Project. “We need both urgency and thoughtfulness on these complex issues; therefore, this spring, we are launching a broader roundtable of stakeholders who will be working on these challenges to continue to develop tools and guides to advance standards-based delivery of the right record, at the right time, at the right place – with appropriate and documented consent.”

These resources were developed by the Privacy & Consent Workgroup, part of Sequoia’s Interoperability Matters program.

The Sequoia Project is hosting a free, public webinar on March 24 from 2-4 p.m. Eastern to present a deep dive on the resources and allow for Q&A from the audience. Registration is required.

Learn more about the Interoperability Matters Privacy & Consent Workgroup and how to become involved here.

Visit www.sequoiaproject.org for additional resources and updates on the Interoperability Matters program and how to become a Sequoia member.

About The Sequoia Project

The Sequoia Project is a non-profit, 501c3, public-private collaborative chartered to advance implementation of secure, interoperable nationwide health information exchange. The Sequoia Project focuses on solving real-world interoperability challenges and brings together public and private stakeholders in forums, such as the Interoperability Matters cooperative, to overcome barriers. The Sequoia Project is the Recognized Coordinating Entity® (RCE®) for the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT’s Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA). In this role, The Sequoia Project developed and will implement and maintain TEFCA’s Common Agreement component and operationalize the Qualified Health Information Network® (QHIN™) designation and monitoring process. For more information about The Sequoia Project and its initiatives, visit www.sequoiaproject.org.

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