About the Health Commerce System
The HCS platform provides access to hundreds of applications used to protect the health and safety of New York State (NYS) residents. Examples of these systems include:
- Communicable Disease Electronic Surveillance System (CDESS)
- Prescription Monitoring Program Registry (PMP)
- Physician Profile System
- New York State Immunization Information System (NYSIIS)
- Health Electronic Response Data System (HERDS)
- NYS Electronic Certificate of Need (NYSECON)
- Uniform Assessment System for New York (UASNY)
- Integrated Health Alert Network System (IHANS)
In NYS, licensed health facilities, providers, and practitioners, as well as other partner organizations, are required to have a HCS account to support health data reporting and distribution.
If your organization needs to receive or submit data to be in compliance with your overseeing NYS agency, then your facility, agency or service needs to establish their organization on HCS so authorized individuals can create accounts on the HCS associated with the organization. Some facilities or providers are required by law to maintain their HCS account such as nursing homes, hospitals and adult care facilities for electronic data exchange with the NYS Department of Health.
Browser Requirements
At more than 20 years old, the Health Commerce System is a mature system providing access to over 250 individual data transaction applications of varying ages. Older applications available through the Health Commerce System may have specific Internet browser requirements that may or may not conflict with the generally supported browsers. In such cases, users are encouraged to check the application profile for specific requirements and should direct any concerns to the application owner.
General Browser Requirements
- TLS 1.2 encryption enabled
- Browser set to accept cookies
- Javascript must be enabled
Detailed system requirements and a list of supported browsers can be found here: HCS Browser Requirements
Network administrators, particularly firewall and proxy security administrators in organizations that need to access Health Commerce System (HCS) and UPHN api can find netwrok configuration information here: Network Requirements
HCS Policies
Violation of the HCS security and use agreement (e.g. sharing your account user ID and password with someone else) will result in the temporary suspension of your account privileges until required remedial action is taken by executives at your facility.
Security and use policies can be found here: Policies and Forms.
Terms of Use
The New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) has developed the Health Commerce System (HCS) as a secure system for electronically collecting and distributing health related data among NYSDOH, health facilities/providers and public health response partners. The Health Commerce System acts as a conduit for real time exchange of confidential information including patient level data regarding chronic or communicable disease and other non-public material regarding naturally occurring or terrorist related disease outbreaks or environmental disasters leading to mass casualty and mortality and generally affecting the health of the population. Therefore there must be a clear understanding of how participant organizations and users must protect the use of HCS and specific, signed and notarized agreements are required before an organization and its staff may gain access to HCS resources and applications.
Find our complete Terms of use here: Terms of Use.