On August 7,
2013, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) and the Office of
the National Coordinator for Health IT (“ONC”) published a strategy to “accelerate”
interoperability of health information exchanges. CMS and ONC also hosted a
webinar
to explain the strategy (the “Strategy”). The Strategy was issued in a response
to a Request for Information (RFI) about how to accelerate health information
exchange (HIE) and interoperability, published March 7, 2013 in the Federal
Register.
According to
CMS/ONC, the Strategy was developed because existing incentive and
certification programs for electronic health records are not considered to be
enough to achieve the widespread interoperability desired. Further, CMS/ONC
fear that the marketplace does not yet offer a strong enough business
motivation across all providers and settings to encourage interoperability. Based on more than 200 responses to the RFI,
the Strategy was developed to set forth a set of principles for a comprehensive
effort across agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services
(“HHS”) to further encourage and accelerate HIE. The principles are organized
into three categories: (1) Accelerating HIE, (2) Advancing Standards and
Interoperability, and (3) Consumer/Patient Engagement.
Under the
first principle (Accelerating HIE), HHS will seek to ensure that all new
regulations and guidance enable a patient’s health information to follow the
patient wherever he or she accesses care. The goal with policy development will
be to make HIE a standard business practice for all providers. This includes
interoperability across governmental units, including the federal government,
Medicaid, and state agencies.
Under the
second principle (Advancing Standards and Interoperability), HHS will advance
the development of standards among various organizations through a variety of
policies and programs. The goal of HHS is to align standards for quality
measurement and improvement across the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Also,
HHS will accelerate alignment and implementation of electronic clinical quality
measures, electronic decision support interventions, and electronic reporting
mechanisms.
Under the
third principle (Consumer/Patient Engagement), HHS will develop policies and
programs to support appropriate patient access to their health information. The
goal will be to make standardized data available to patients wherever possible.
For more
information about electronic medical records, interoperability or health
information exchange, contact Mark T. Morrell at mmorrell@kdlegal.com or Susan Ziel at sziel@kdlegal.com.