Association calls for business needs validation, convergence of administrative and clinical data, and spurring innovation
The Healthcare Administrative Technology Association (HATA), the national association representing the practice management software (PMS) industry, recently published its recommendations regarding the ONC Interoperability Roadmap. This document is in response to the Office of the National Coordinator’s (ONC) 10-year plan for advancing interoperability as laid out in a document entitled, “Connecting Health and Care for the Nation: A Shared Nationwide Interoperability Roadmap version 1.0 (Roadmap).” The Roadmap, shaped by stakeholder input and public comments, supports the vision that ONC outlined in, “Connecting Health and Care for the Nation: A 10-Year Vision to Achieve an Interoperable Health IT Infrastructure.” HATA’s recommendations intend to spur innovation, stay ahead of information exchange needs, and promote cost-effective interoperability:
- Information exchange that meets identified business and clinical needs of all stakeholders.
- Convergence of the administrative and clinical data to meet verified business use cases, interoperability principles and the exploration of emerging administrative and clinical use cases.
- Spur innovation and stay ahead of information exchange needs among stakeholders by the selection of a thought leader multi-stakeholder organization or collaborative of associations to monitor emerging trends and develop recommendations.
HATA’s complete recommendations to ONC are available on its website.
“Historically, the voice of the PMS vendor is under-represented during interoperability industry conversations,” notes HATA President, Eric Christ. “HATA supports promoting interoperability programs and is uniquely poised to guide ONC as we have members that have stand-alone PMS and hybrid PMS EMS that can bridged both administrative and clinical use cases.”
HATA is a strong supporter of interoperable administrative and clinical information exchange utilizing the HIPAA standard transactions and code sets and is actively demonstrating its support by developing its Certification in Healthcare Administrative Technology (CHAT). The CHAT program recognizes PMS vendors providing a standard level of privacy and security, as well as software functionality and features that focus on both electronic health records (EHR) and revenue cycle management (RCM) workflows.
“HATA and its members look forward to working with ONC and the industry-at-large to determine the timing, prioritization and other factors that need to be considered with each of these recommendations moving forward,” notes Christ.
About HATA
The Healthcare Administrative Technology Association (HATA) is a non-profit trade association that provides a forum for the PMS industry and other affiliated stakeholders. The association serves as the representative voice to advocate and influence key stakeholders and government representatives on PMS Vendor issues. Its members: ALC Consulting, AllMeds, Alpha II, American Medical Association, AMBA, Availity, Cognizant, e-MDs, eProvider Solutions, EZClaim, GeBBS Healthcare, Greenway Health, HealthPac, InstaMed, Medinformatix, MGMA, NextGen Healthcare, Office Ally, Optum, PAHCOM, PaySpan, PracticeAdmin, PracticeInsight, WorkCompEDI and Zelis Payments represent more than 600,000 providers.