I’ve been writing fewer posts recently because the trajectory forward for healthcare and healthcare IT seems to be evolving very rapidly. In just the past week, we’ve had: the American Hospital Association letter suggesting that 21,000 pages of regulations be rolled back including Meaningful Use Stage Three concepts and quality measurement in many care settings, the passage of the 21st Century Cures bill and its many IT related mandates, and the nomination of Tom Price for HHS Secretary and Seema Verma for CMS administrator...
information blocking
See the following -
10 Steps to Achieving Interoperability
Bernie Monegain | Healthcare IT News | December 9, 2015
When nine organizations -- several of them health IT vendors -- urged Congress in a Dec. 7 letter to resist delaying Stage 3 of the Meaningful Use EHR Incentive Program, the plea came with an outline for strengthening interoperability. "What is clear to us is that current requirements and pace of the Meaningful Use program have taken away time and valuable resources from fixing our nation's interoperability problem, the organizations -- Apervita, athenahealth, Intel, National Alliance on Mental Illness, New Directions Technology Consulting, Oracle, United Spinal Association and Verizon -- wrote in their letter to Congressional leadership...
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21st Century Cures and the Road Ahead
By John D. Halamka, MD | December 7, 2016
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A New Pothole on the Health Interoperability Superhighway
Adrian Gropper | The Health Care Blog | August 15, 2017
On July 24, the new administration kicked off their version of interoperability work with a public meeting of the incumbent trust brokers. They invited the usual suspects Carequality, CARIN Alliance, CommonWell, Digital Bridge, DirectTrust, eHealth Exchange, NATE, and SHIEC with the goal of driving for an understanding of how these groups will work with each other to solve information blocking and longitudinal health records as mandated by the 21st Century Cures Act...
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Accessing & Using APIs from Major EMR Vendors–Some Data at Last!
Matthew Holt | The Healthcare Blog | September 19, 2016
Information blocking, Siloed data. No real inter-operability. Standards that aren’t standards. In the last few years, the clamor about the problems accessing personal health data has grown as the use of electronic medical records (EMRs) increased post the Federally-funded HITECH program. But at Health 2.0 where we focus on newer health tech startups using SMAC (Social/Sensor; Mobile OS; Cloud; Analytics) technologies, the common complaint we’ve heard has been that the legacy–usually client-server based–EMR vendors won’t let the newer vendors integrate with them...
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Are jackalopes and information blocking similar?
By Irv Lichtenwald | June 10, 2015
Looking to dupe urbanite travelers, bartenders and bar owners in rural Western taverns sometimes fasten antelope horns to the head of a large jackrabbit. They then mount the whole thing, hang it over the bar and tell visitors looking for a craft brewed IPA to watch for vicious jackalopes when they’re out and about. So, are we having a jackalope moment in health IT? Do we believe in something we can’t see? The suggestion has been made that some vendors are actively engaged in “information blocking”—a basic refusal to exchange patient data with other systems. Either that or they’re charging boatloads of money to do so, which is framed as a form of information blocking in a way, but not exactly.
CMS Releases Proposed Updates to Medicare MIPS Promoting Interoperability Program for Physicians
By Noam H. Arzt, Ph.D. | September 2, 2022
On July 29, 2022 the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) related to changes in the Medicare Program Physician Fee Schedule for 2013. Among the proposals in this lengthy document are those related to the Promoting Interoperability Program for physician practices, the successor to the Meaningful Use of Electronic Health Record (EHR) technology that was originally rooted in the 2009 HITECH Act. This program has been evolving over the years and this NPRM proposes some meaningful changes to the public health reporting component which would first be used for calendar year 2023.
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Congress is its own roadblock to interoperability
Marla Durben Hirsch | Fierce EMR | April 8, 2015
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT has received a large number of comments on its draft interoperability road map. Some commenters have praised it; others have offered criticisms. Yet, we can't ignore that ONC is not alone at the interoperability drawing board. Both the CommonWell Health Alliance and Carequality, Healtheway's interoperability initiative, are forging ahead with their own initiatives. There also are the health information exchanges, with their different rules, operating models and governance structures.
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Data Blocking Hampers Interoperability, ONC Says
Greg Slabodkin | Health Data Management | April 10, 2015
According to ONC, complaints and other evidence described in the 39-page report “suggest that some persons and entities are interfering with the exchange or use of electronic health information in ways that frustrate the goals of the HITECH Act and undermine broader healthcare reforms.” ONC’s report provides criteria for identifying and distinguishing electronic health information blocking from other barriers to interoperability, and details current and proposed actions...
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Do We Need More or Less Healthcare IT Regulation and Legislation?
By John D. Halamka, MD | July 13, 2016
Just as I clarified last week in my post about Certification, the answer to the question “do we need more or less healthcare IT regulation and legislation” is that we need the right amount of the right regulations/legislation. Sometimes when clinicians prescribe medication, although it does therapeutic good, it creates side effects which need to be addressed by changing a dose or by adding additional medications. Such is the case with HITECH. It was generally good medicine, but now that we’ve seen the side effects on workflow, clinician burden, and efficiency, there needs to be a dose adjustment...
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EHR Business Environment Must Change to Achieve Interoperability
Greg Slabodkin | Health Data Management | February 4, 2015
The main challenges for the nation’s health IT interoperability are not technical but business related. That’s the word from former National Coordinators for Health IT speaking in a panel session on Tuesday at ONC’s Annual Meeting in Washington. Farzad Mostashari, M.D., former National Coordinator for HIT and currently CEO of start-up Aledade which partners with independent primary care physicians, warned that business practices among some electronic health records vendors are inhibiting the sharing of health information by restricting information exchange with users of other EHR products.
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EHR Data 'Blocking' Hobbles HIT, Says ONC
John Commins | Health Leaders Media | April 13, 2015
Technology vendors, hospitals, and health systems restrict data access under the guise of security and confidentiality, but it can be challenging to identify and differentiate information-blocking from more benign impediments, says an ONC report.
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Fed Advisors Say Data Blocking not Hindering Interoperability
Greg Slabodkin | Health Data Management | August 26, 2015
the task force’s observation flies in the face of an April 2015 report to Congress from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT which highlighted the problem of electronic health information blocking, drawing attention to how both provider and vendor “bad actors” are interfering with data exchange. In its report, ONC argued that some EHR vendors are preventing the exchange of health information with competitors and how some providers engage in information blocking to control referrals and enhance their market dominance over competitors.
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FTC, ONC put vendors on notice
Mike Miliard | Healthcare IT News | October 10, 2014
The Federal Trade Commission has some news for health IT vendors whose zeal for competitive marketshare outweighs their willingness to share data: they're watching, and will step in where necessary. "We are working with ONC staff to identify potential competition issues relating to health IT platforms and standards, market concentration, conduct by market participants, and the ability of health IT purchasers to make informed buying decisions," wrote FTC officials in a blog post this week.
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Halamka's Advice to the Trump Administration
By John D. Halamka, MD | January 11, 2017
As I've listened to the confirmation hearings for cabinet nominees, I’ve realized that no one with healthcare IT expertise has yet been identified by the transition team. I continue to ask all my colleagues about any contact they’ve had with anyone advising the new administration - so far, no one has been asked anything by anyone related to healthcare IT. At this early time in the administration, it’s important to offer advice as to the priorities ahead for the next few years. What would I recommend to the new administration?
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Health Information Exchanges Report Information Blocking
Kate Monica | EHR Intelligence | March 23, 2017
Despite widespread disapproval and Congressional scrutiny, information blocking remains a problem for health information exchanges working to connect providers and their EHR systems. Drawing data from a national survey of 60 HIE leaders, a new study by researchers at University of Michigan Schools of Information and Public Health found information blocking to be widespread and the policies in place to mitigate the practice ineffective...
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