All posts in category Public Policy and Health IT

A Focus on Standards 

Screen Shot 2019-07-04 at 6.19.08 PMOn June 3, EHRA submitted feedback to ONC on its proposed rule, the  21st Century Cures Act: Interoperability, Information Blocking, and the ONC Health IT Certification Program. In this feedback, EHRA members drew on both their expertise as software developers and as contributors to standards work across the health IT industry. 

One theme of EHRA and other stakeholders’ feedback is that a focus on standards is critical. A particular standard proposed recently by ONC is the United States Core Data for Interoperability, or USCDI. USCDI “is a standardized set of health data classes and constituent data elements for nationwide, interoperable health information exchange” and includes important health data classes. 

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by EHR Association on July 9, 2019  •  Permalink
Posted in Health IT Regulation, Interoperability, Public Policy and Health IT
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Posted by EHR Association on July 9, 2019

https://ehrablog.org/2019/07/09/a-focus-on-standards/

EHR Developers are Aligned with Goals of Cures NPRM, Hope ONC will Remove Ambiguity and Reassess Timeline

Screen Shot 2019-05-26 at 9.15.33 PMWe had been waiting for the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT to release the proposed rule fulfilling its Cures Act obligation for quite a while. Encompassing important issues like expanded interoperability, defining what is and isn’t information blocking, as well as proposing updated certification requirements, this is an important rule to get right.

Since the release, there have been lots of discussions—public and private, online and off—about intended and potentially unintended impacts of the language in the proposal. With so much to consider and analyze, we appreciate that the request from EHRA and other groups to give us a full three months to draft our comments on the rule was approved.

The tremendously broad reach of the proposed rule goes far beyond Congressional intent.

The EHR Association’s comments are now going through final rounds of review by our executive committee (and the seven workgroups and task forces that contributed their expertise). We worked throughout the drafting of the 21st Century Cures Act with Congress and are supportive of its goal to remove obstacles to information exchange, but we have found that the tremendously broad reach of the proposed rule goes far beyond Congressional intent. In particular, we have significant concerns regarding timelines, ambiguous language, disincentives for innovation, and definitions related to information blocking.

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by EHR Association on May 28, 2019  •  Permalink
Posted in Health IT Regulation, Health IT Standards, Innovation, Interoperability, Public Policy and Health IT

Posted by EHR Association on May 28, 2019

https://ehrablog.org/2019/05/28/ehr-developers-are-aligned-with-goals-of-cures-nprm-hope-onc-will-remove-ambiguity-and-reassess-timeline/

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

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

Posted by EHR Association on February 20, 2019

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

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 EHR Association 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 EHR Association on October 16, 2018

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

Why HHS Needs a Privacy Leader and a Cybersecurity Leader

By Nam Nguyen and Sayee Balaji Chandrasekaran, Chair and Vice Chair, EHRA Privacy & Security Workgroup

_Security and Privacy are not the same. A Security leader_s primary concern is protecting and securing data. A Privacy leader_s primary concern is who can access certain data and whaCyber-threats are all over the news, including attempts to hack elections, steal corporate trade secrets, and hold medical records for ransom. Phishing is rampant, and is the way most hackers ultimately get into secure systems. The U.S. government has, of course, taken notice, and is taking action on several fronts.

One of those fronts is healthcare, with the release by HHS of the Health Care Industry Cybersecurity Task Force’s “Report on Improving Cybersecurity in the Health Care Industry,” which was delivered to Congress in June 2017.  The task force wrote, “Our nation must find a way to prevent our patients from being forced to choose between connectivity and security.”

EHRA welcomes this report, which we view as a path forward for increasing security in the healthcare sector.  The report directly aligns with two of EHRA’s privacy and security positions: (more…)

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by EHR Association on April 5, 2018  •  Permalink
Posted in Privacy and Security, Public Policy and Health IT

Posted by EHR Association on April 5, 2018

https://ehrablog.org/2018/04/05/why-hhs-needs-a-privacy-leader-and-a-cybersecurity-leader/

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