JASON Task Force To ONC: Consider Delaying MU Stage 3 Incentives

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT should narrow Meaningful Use Stage 3 to focus on interoperability and "assertively monitor" the transition to public APIs but implement only "non-regulatory steps" to catalyze the transition, according to ONC's JASON task force.

In its final recommendations, the task force reiterated a number of suggestions it has made previously, including the need to use Stage 3 as a "pivot point" to initiate the transition to public APIs and that currently interoperability approaches are limited and need to be eventually replaced by more comprehensive API-based architecture.

The task force, co-chaired by Cerner's David McCallie and Micky Tripathi from the Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative, also suggested that narrowing Stage 3's focus on interoperability would would send a "strong signal" to the market and allow providers and vendors to focus their resources; Stage 2 has shown the industry that "overly broad and complex requirements slow progress on all fronts."...