Comment period is now closed on the HHS proposed rule to support seamless and secure access, exchange, and use of electronic health information (EHI). The proposed rule is designed to increase innovation and competition by giving patients and their healthcare providers secure access to health information and new tools, allowing for more choice in care and treatment. It calls on the healthcare industry to adopt standardized application programming interfaces (APIs), which will help allow individuals to securely and easily access structured EHI using smartphone applications. The proposed rule places a strong focus on a patient’s ability to access their health information through a provision requiring that patients can electronically access all of their EHI (structured and/or unstructured) at no cost. Finally, to further support access and exchange of EHI, the proposed rule implements the information blocking provisions of the Cures Act. The rule proposes seven exceptions to the definition of information blocking.
As they should, the participants in the industry have filed their formal comments to the proposed rule. Here are some highlights.
The Sequoia Project (@sequoiaproject) is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) public private collaborative that advances interoperability for the public good. The Sequoia Project previously served as a corporate home for several independently governed health IT interoperability initiatives, including the eHealth Exchange health information network and the Carequality interoperability framework. The eHealth Exchange health information network and Carequality now operate under their own non-profit corporations.The Sequoia Project is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) public private collaborative that advances interoperability for the public good. The Sequoia Project previously served as a corporate home for several independently governed health IT interoperability initiatives, including the eHealth Exchange health information network and the Carequality interoperability framework. The eHealth Exchange health information network and Carequality now operate under their own non-profit corporations. Read about their comments.
The New York State Health Foundation (@nys_health) seeks to improve the health of all New Yorkers. They are committed not only to making grants, but also to making a difference beyond their grant dollars: informing health care policy and practice, spreading effective programs that work to improve the health system, serving as a convener of health leaders across the State, and providing technical assistance to their grantees and partners. Read about their comments.
WEDI (@WEDIonline) is an advisor to the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and a multi-stakeholder organization comprised of health plans, providers, vendors and SDOs, WEDI offers the structure for intra-industry collaboration. Read about their comments.
SMART (@SMARTHealthIT) is run out of the Boston Children’s Hospital Computational Health Informatics Program and the Harvard Medical School Department of Biomedical Informatics. Read about their comments.
The Electronic Health Record Association (EHRA) (@EHRAssociation) brings together companies that develop, market, and support electronic health records (EHRs), to collaborate on issues that impact our businesses and our collective customers — hospitals and providers that represent the majority of EHR users in the US. We work together to speak with a unified voice on these topics in a non-competitive, collegial effort to understand, educate, and collaborate with all stakeholders engaged with EHRs and health information technology. Read about their comments.
The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME)Â (@CIOCHIME) together with affiliate organizations, the Association for Executives in Healthcare Information Technology (AEHIT) and the Association for Executives in Healthcare Information Applications (AEHIA) have submitted comments on the NPRM.
The University of California, San Francisco’s Center for Digital Health Innovation, a worldwide leader in health care delivery, discovery, and education. Consistent with this public imperative, UCSF invests heavily in developing a variety of health information technology, innovation, and management resources and best practices to give health care providers and patients,1 researchers and scientists, educators and students, the interoperability and transformative tools to succeed in this rapidly evolving digital health age. Read about their comments.
The American Hospital Association (AHA) (@ahahospitals), on behalf of the nearly 5,000 member hospitals, health systems and other health care organizations, and our clinician partners – including more than 270,000 affiliated physicians, 2 million nurses and other caregivers – and the 43,000 health care leaders who belong to our professional membership groups. Read their submitted comments.
AMIA is the professional home for more than 5,500 informatics professionals, representing frontline clinicians, researchers, public health experts, and educators who bring meaning to data, manage information, and generate new knowledge across the research and healthcare enterprise. As the voice of the nation’s biomedical and health informatics professionals, AMIA plays a leading role in advancing health and wellness by moving basic research findings from bench to bedside, and evaluating interventions, innovations and public policy across care settings and patient populations. Read their submitted comments.
CRISP serves as the state-designated HIE for the state of Maryland and serves the District of Columbia and West Virginia via partnerships. They provide data at the point of care, push data to care managers, provide reporting and analytics for population health, support public health initiatives, and help manage several Maryland care redesign programs. CRISP is organized as a non-profit public-private partnership, governed by the healthcare organizations that rely on these services. Read their submitted comments.
Emory Healthcare is an integrated academic health care system committed to providing the best care for patients; educating health professionals and leaders for the future; pursuing discovery in all of its forms, including basic, clinical and population-based research; and serving our community. As the clinical enterprise of the Robe1t W. Woodruff Health Sciences Center of Emory University, Emory Healthcare remains the most comprehensive health care system in Georgia, providing extensive inpatient and outpatient services to a diverse patient population. Read their submitted comments.
NextGate (@NextGate) is dedicated to helping healthcare organizations overcome the clinical, operational and financial challenges that result from duplicate records and disparate systems by providing a complete and accurate view of patient data across care settings. A global market leader in healthcare enterprise identification, NextGate’s flagship Enterprise Master Patient Index (EMPI) solution currently manages patient identities for more than two-thirds of the U.S. population and over one-third of the population in the U.K and Australia. NextGate operates in four countries, with over 200 customers and is deployed by the most successful healthcare systems and health information exchanges in the U.S. Read their submitted comments.
You can view all comments submitted on the proposed rule on Regulations.gov.