All posts in category Public Policy and Health IT

Health IT and Public Health: Past, Present, Future

For COVID-19 resources for health IT developers and other stakeholders, click here.

By Kedar Ganta, Co-Chair, EHRA Standards & Interoperability Workgroup

For centuries, public health has been a story of the quest to find effective means of preventing diseases, containing outbreaks and analyzing health trends in the population. 

The “old” public health ecosystem focused on the environment, while the “new” public health focus is on the individual within a given population. Shifting the focus from finding sources of epidemic and endemic infectious diseases in our surroundings to finding them in the individual necessitated an evolution from trial and error to scientific inquiry that revolves around defining diseases, measuring their frequency and seeking effective interventions.

During the 20th century, science and technology reshaped our shared understanding of diseases and helped restructure public health and medicine. This “new” era will be guided by the rapidly growing availability of health data to detect, observe and understand health patterns at a population level using advanced computing and analytics.

Electronic health records (EHRs) continue to play an important role in influencing and improving population health outcomes by efficiently collecting standardized individual data that can be shared among different healthcare organizations and public health agencies.

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by EHR Association on September 29, 2020  •  Permalink
Posted in COVID-19, Health IT Standards, Interoperability, Public Policy and Health IT

Posted by EHR Association on September 29, 2020

https://ehrablog.org/2020/09/29/health-it-and-public-health-past-present-future/

The Fight to Control COVID-19 Demands Data

For COVID-19 resources for health IT developers and other stakeholders, click here.

COVID-19 arrived unexpectedly as a highly contagious disease that surprised everyone, requiring healthcare providers and public health officials to take quick action and make decisions on how to care for those infected, how to slow down (if not prevent) the spread, how to improve treatment options, and how to identify a vaccine. Yet this pandemic continues to take too many lives and affect too many more.  

To understand how to treat the patients, which risk factors make some people more vulnerable, and why it spread so fast, access to data has been proven essential. A patient’s clinical record to facilitate treating those who are ill, combined with further socio-demographic data to research and identify those at highest risk and new data to support clinical trials – all are essential to flatten and ultimately bend the curve as far down as possible. 

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by EHR Association on September 9, 2020  •  Permalink
Posted in COVID-19, Health IT Standards, Interoperability, Public Policy and Health IT

Posted by EHR Association on September 9, 2020

https://ehrablog.org/2020/09/09/the-fight-to-control-covid-19-demands-data/

Enabling Improved Price Transparency In Healthcare

price transparEncyOn June 3, the public comment period on ONC’s NPRM implementing health IT provisions of the 21st Century Cures Act closed. These comment windows offer a unique opportunity to gain a broader perspective on the state of the health IT industry. 

Upon our review of the feedback submitted to ONC, an overwhelming trend emerged—nearly 55% of the 2,013 comments were from individual patients commenting in favor of increased price transparency in the healthcare industry. Patients shared stories of the challenges they faced in determining the cost of treatment before receiving care, and dozens expressed the shock and financial hardship they experienced when they received a bill for their care. 

In the months since the public comment window closed, we’ve seen this demand for healthcare price transparency gain attention across the industry. President Trump issued an executive order, and the Senate is considering the “Lower Health Care Costs Act,” legislation that aims to improve patient access to price information in the healthcare industry.

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by EHR Association on September 12, 2019  •  Permalink
Posted in Delivery System Reform, Health IT Standards, Interoperability, Public Policy and Health IT, Usability and Clinician Experience

Posted by EHR Association on September 12, 2019

https://ehrablog.org/2019/09/12/enabling-improved-price-transparency-in-healthcare/

Interoperability: Promise and Progress 

Interoperability(1)For healthcare providers and their patients, interoperability holds the promise to substantially improve quality and reduce costs, while enabling coordination of care and engagement of patients with their caregivers. As ONC’s annual Interoperability Forum gets underway, it’s important to focus not just on where we want to be, but on how far we’ve come. 

EHRA members are strong proponents of health information exchange; our members have supported hundreds of thousands of providers in their effort to exchange electronic health information through the development of interoperability modules in their solutions, and participation in industry frameworks such as the eHealth Exchange, CommonWell Health Alliance, and Carequality.  (more…)

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by EHR Association on August 21, 2019  •  Permalink
Posted in Health IT Standards, Interoperability, Public Policy and Health IT

Posted by EHR Association on August 21, 2019

https://ehrablog.org/2019/08/21/interoperability-promise-and-progress/

Throwing My Hat in the Ring for EHRA

By Alise Widmer, RN

Hat on tableBeginning in 2012, and continuing as I transitioned from one EHR company to another, I was a passive member of EHRA workgroups. Listening in on biweekly calls, I became more impressed by the work that so many volunteers do on behalf of EHRA — especially when you consider it’s in addition to their demanding day jobs. 

I’m inspired by what I’ve observed as sincere passion for the greater good of the healthcare community. Yes, there is also robust advocacy on behalf of the EHR vendor community, but the efforts I’ve witnessed go beyond supporting corporate interests to an embrace of patient safety efforts and other demonstrations of a conscientious stewardship of the role of electronic health records in enhancing patient care. I began to want a more involved role in the association (as opposed to the normal ‘multi-tasking’ I would do during workgroup calls), so last year I decided to “throw my hat in the ring,” and was honored to be appointed as vice chair of the Standards & Interoperability Workgroup when that position became vacant mid-term. (more…)

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by EHR Association on August 13, 2019  •  Permalink
Posted in Case Studies and Personal Stories, Interoperability, Public Policy and Health IT

Posted by EHR Association on August 13, 2019

https://ehrablog.org/2019/08/13/throwing-my-hat-in-the-ring-for-ehra/

Health IT and Social Determinants of Health

https://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/topics-objectives/topic/social-determinants-of-health

In a recent post on the Allscripts Blog, Leigh Burchell, Chair of the EHRA Public Policy Leadership Workgroup and EHRA Opioid Task Force, shared her perspective on policy issues surrounding social determinants of health. She notes that, “it is generally accepted that there is a correlation between social determinants of health and patient outcomes.”
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by EHR Association on July 23, 2019  •  Permalink
Posted in Meaningful Use, Public Policy and Health IT, Value of HIT

Posted by EHR Association on July 23, 2019

https://ehrablog.org/2019/07/23/health-it-and-social-determinants-of-health/

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