An EHR Perspective on the Consumer-Focused API/App Landscape

By Hans Buitendijk
EHRA Executive Committee member
Chair, Interoperability & Standards Workgroup

kevin-grieve-712217-unsplashONC’s 2015 Certification Edition for EHRs began supporting consumer access to their health data beyond patient portals. Open APIs were required to enable consumer Apps to access data from the Common Clinical Data Set. Because at the time there were no standards sufficiently mature to establish as a base, the requirement allowed for access by any means as long as the technical specifications, including terms and conditions, were made publicly available to enable App developers to write their Apps on top of these APIs.

A lot has happened since then.
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by EHRA on March 12, 2019  •  Permalink
Posted in Certification, Health IT Standards, Interoperability

Posted by EHRA on March 12, 2019

https://ehrablog.org/2019/03/12/an-ehr-perspective-on-the-consumer-focused-api-app-landscape/

MACRA: Then and Now

By David Heller

MACRA

How much do you know about Congress’ effort to “rein in” expenses associated with healthcare’s fee-for-service system with the passage of MACRA?

Incentivizing value-based care was the goal of the Medicare and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015, aka MACRA, writes David Heller of the EHRA Public Policy Committee and Corporate Counsel for Regulatory Affairs at Greenway in an article tracing MACRA’s policy roots and offering recommendations for its future in the American University Health Law and Policy Brief.

In the article, “MACRA: Emerging from the Thicket,” Heller explains some of the reporting complexities that the Congressional authors of MACRA were trying to address.

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by EHRA on February 27, 2019  •  Permalink
Posted in Delivery System Reform, Public Policy and Health IT

Posted by EHRA on February 27, 2019

https://ehrablog.org/2019/02/27/macra-then-and-now/

Standardizing Data Collection to Support Clinicians in the Opioid Fight

By David Bucciferro and Katelyn Fontaine
EHRA Opioid Crisis Task Force 

Dataset Infographic

Click here to open image in new window.

Volunteers on EHRA’s Opioid Crisis Task Force have made great strides in the past year in our efforts to identify the policy changes and adoption patterns needed to maximize the capacities of health IT to combat the opioid crisis.

From the start, our focus has been, What do providers need from technology to support their efforts in the opioid crisis?

When we began our work in early 2018, we were surprised to find that there was no comprehensive source for the state-specific policies and standards surrounding prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) and electronic prescribing of controlled substances (EPCS). So, we set out to create our own.

State by state, we collected data, including timeframes for reporting controlled substance prescriptions to PDMPs, what data is collected, which professionals are able to access PDMP information, if and when information can be shared across states, and any limits on retaining PDMP data within an EHR.

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by EHRA on February 20, 2019  •  Permalink
Posted in Interoperability, Opioid Crisis, Public Policy and Health IT, Usability and Clinician Experience

Posted by EHRA on February 20, 2019

https://ehrablog.org/2019/02/20/standardizing-data-collection-to-support-clinicians-in-the-opioid-fight/

How EHR Technology Can Support Best Practices for Opioid Prescribing

By Dan Seltzer and Alan Staples
Co-chairs, Clinician Impact Subgroup, EHRA Opioid Crisis Task Force

screenshot_2018-12-26 ehra cdc opioid guideline implementation guide for ehrs - ehra-cdc-opioid-guideline-implementation-gu[...]The widespread opioid epidemic and its devastating effects flood our news feeds daily. No one is immune, which is why when the Electronic Health Record Association (EHRA) asked for volunteers to join a new Opioid Crisis Task Force, we and many others – including doctors, nurses, and pharmacists – stepped forward to share our experiences and expertise. For the past year, we have been conducting research and providing recommendations on new ways EHR technology can contribute solutions to help solve the complex puzzle of the opioid crisis.

Our most recent contribution is the CDC Opioid Guideline – Implementation Guide for Electronic Health Records.

Initial research and conversations with providers focused on the question, What do providers need from technology to support their efforts in the opioid crisis?  The input we received led us to develop a guide to assist healthcare organizations implement clinical practice guidelines within the EHR to improve opioid stewardship in clinical practice.   Read the full post »

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by EHRA on January 9, 2019  •  Permalink
Posted in Opioid Crisis, Patient Safety and Health IT, Usability and Clinician Experience, Value of HIT

Posted by EHRA on January 9, 2019

https://ehrablog.org/2019/01/09/how-ehr-technology-can-support-best-practices-for-opioid-prescribing/

Five Easy Healthcare Cybersecurity Tips From EHR Developers

By the EHRA Privacy & Security Workgroup

FIVE SIMPLE HEALTHCARE CYBERSECURITY TIPSWhether you work for a large health system or small physician practice, you know that securing your patients’ data is important, and it’s a responsibility you take seriously. But chances are, you haven’t fully implemented as many cybersecurity best practices as you could.
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by EHRA on October 29, 2018  •  Permalink
Posted in Privacy and Security

Posted by EHRA on October 29, 2018

https://ehrablog.org/2018/10/29/five-easy-healthcare-cybersecurity-tips-from-ehr-developers/

IPPS: Ambiguous Measures Won’t Reduce Burden

By Sasha TerMaat
Co-Chair, EHRA Executive Committee

man holding three white medication pills

The final 2019 IPPS rule included changes to the Promoting Interoperability/ Meaningful Use program beginning January 1, 2019. Disappointingly, with only six weeks between the close of the public comment period for the proposed rule in late June and the publication of the final rule in early August, CMS’ rushed process and failure to fully consider stakeholder comments (including EHRA’s) led to a rule filled with measures that will be unworkable, inefficient, and onerous.

In a previous blog we delved into PDMP query as just one of the measures where EHR developers anticipate challenges. In that case it’s due to differing levels of PDMP integration with CEHRT and inconsistent references within the rule about whether the query needs to be made via CEHRT, along with other areas in which the measure is ambiguous.  

In this blog post, let’s look at the reasons we’re concerned about a different measure, this one related to opioid treatment agreements.

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by EHRA on October 16, 2018  •  Permalink
Posted in Certification, Health IT Regulation, Health IT Standards, Public Policy and Health IT, Usability and Clinician Experience

Posted by EHRA on October 16, 2018

https://ehrablog.org/2018/10/16/ipps-ambiguous-measures-wont-reduce-burden/

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