EHRA Launches Delivery System Reform Workgroup

As health IT professionals supporting hundreds of thousands of healthcare professionals across the country, we are paying close attention to the significant efforts by both government and private sector stakeholders to shift the focus of our healthcare system away from volume-driven incentives and towards value-based reimbursement.  With that shift, we’re also seeing an increasing recognition for the important role that EHRs and other health information technology tools play in achieving our shared objectives of a more efficient, effective healthcare system.

In response, the EHR Association (EHRA) has launched the Delivery System Reform (DSR) Workgroup as a source of information and education for EHRA members, and to serve as a vehicle for providing input on related Congressional and regulatory initiatives and collaborating with other industry stakeholders.

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EHRA Leadership Insights: The SGR Repeal

Leigh Burchell (VP, Policy and Government Affairs at Allscripts), former vice chair of EHRA and current vice chair of our Public Policy Leadership Workgroup, provides background and insights into the recent repeal of the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) regulation, why your provider customers are happy about it, and how it moves us forward in implementing a value-based reimbursement model.

Read her post, “R.I.P. SGR” on the Allscripts blog.

EHRA Responds to ONC’s Interoperability Roadmap

After many conference calls, and lots of “on the job training” using Google Docs to manage the edits of many contributors, we were pleased to submit our response to ONC’s Interoperability Roadmap. . . just in time to start working on the interoperability aspects of the proposed rule for Stage 3 of the EHR Incentive Program . . .and to get ready for HIMSS15!

Overall, we’re positive about the framework the draft Roadmap is starting to put in place, its identified principles, and the pragmatic review of well-established and emerging interoperability standards and technologies. We did express some concern that ONC seems to view the many active, and increasingly successful, interoperability initiatives as a problem to be solved rather than work to inform go-forward strategies with valuable experiences to be built upon. In doing so, we provided some positive suggestions on how to approach interoperability governance in ways that rely on and leverage private sector efforts in the context of an effective public/private partnership.

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Meaningful Use Stage 3 Is Here and We’re Ready to Respond

We recently saw the release of the 732 pages of the CMS Stage 3 Meaningful Use Proposed Rule and ONC’s Proposed Rule on 2015 Edition Certification. The EHRA Meaningful Use and Certification Workgroups have been gearing up to review and comment on these rules for a while so we have already started looking at the eight proposed objectives and 68 proposed certification criteria.

The scope of what is proposed for certification in this NPRM goes beyond what is proposed to be part of the Meaningful Use program, so other EHRA workgroups are also focused on reviewing the material pertinent to their areas of expertise.  We’re committed to detailed review and developing EHRA’s responses for submission by the May 29th deadline.

Our work depends on the deep expertise of EHRA members and their users!  We strongly encourage your involvement. You’ll have the opportunity to learn from the insights of industry experts in our educational calls, discussions, and consensus based positioning. Participating in EHRA’s work will give you an advantage when working on your own company’s feedback.  Also, you’ll be well positioned to engage your users in what the new proposals might mean for their practices and to encourage them to participate in the public comment process.

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Welcome to the EHR Association Blog!

We hope you’ll bookmark this page and visit it often for the latest insights from your EHRA leadership team and peers at member companies. We’re committed to an open dialog that is respectful and informative. Topic areas include meaningful use, public policy, privacy and security, certification, patient safety, usability, standards and interoperability, and quality measures.

Check out the EHRA Blog Guidelines at the link above, and submit your posts (and, optionally, a photo) to Elizabeth (Liddy) West at ewest123@msn.com. We welcome original posts as well as links to posts that our members might find of interest.

Looking Back at 2014 and Forward to 2015

(January 2015)   As 2015 begins, the EHRA leadership has taken some time to put together what we see as the major achievements for our association in 2014, in the context of the challenges we and our customers have faced.

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    Kasey Nicholoff
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    Communications and Media
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