What’s Happening at the ONC – 12-24-19

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Posted By: Roberta Mullin December 24, 2019

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) is at the forefront of the administration’s health IT efforts and is a resource to the entire health system to support the adoption of health information technology and the promotion of nationwide health information exchange to improve health care. ONC is organizationally located within the Office of the Secretary for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Here is what they are doing and reporting. Follow them @ONC_HealthIT. Sign up for their email updates.

News

ONC Awards Audacious Inquiry Contract for Expansion of “PULSE” National Emergency Preparedness and Response Platform
Audacious Inquiry (Ai) (@A_INQ), an industry leader in connected care, was awarded a new contract to expand the PULSE platform to improve usability, scalability, and flexibility to support a tighter integration with the national data exchange frameworks. These improvements will position PULSE for broad national adoption.

Just Released: 2020 Annual Meeting Agenda
The 2020 Annual Meeting agenda is now available online, and a detailed agenda with breakout session information will be available later this week. This year’s event, Connecting Policy and Technology: Bringing the EHR to the Patient, will be held January 27-28 at the JW Marriott in Washington, DC. The meeting will gather over 1,100 health IT partners for a combination of plenaries and breakout sessions covering a variety of health IT, healthcare, and innovation topics. View the Agenda.

New Common Agreement Task Force Announced
The ONC TEFCA RCE, the Sequoia Project, has announced the formation of a Common Agreement Task Force. This task force will facilitate stakeholder input and consist of potential QHINs that are selected to review draft language and inform the development of the initial Common Agreement. More information will be posted on the RCE website when available.

Now Available: 2020 Eligible Clinician Electronic Clinical Quality Measure Flows
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) developed and published the 2020 performance period electronic clinical quality measure (eCQM) flows for eligible clinicians and eligible professionals to the eCQI Resource Center. The eCQM flows are designed to assist in interpretation of the eCQM logic and calculation methodology for performance rates. eCQM flows provide an overview of each of the population criteria components and associated data elements that lead to the inclusion or exclusions into the eCQM’s quality action (numerator).

eCQM flows supplement eCQM specifications for eligible clinicians and eligible professionals for the following programs:

  • Quality Payment Program: The Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) and Advanced Alternative Payment Models (Advanced APMs)
  • Advanced APM: Comprehensive Primary Care Plus (CPC+)
  • Medicaid Promoting Interoperability Program for Eligible Professionals

These flows are intended to be used as an additional resource when implementing eCQMs and should not be used in place of the eCQM specification or for reporting purposes.

Questions on the eCQM flows should be directed to the ONC Project Tracking System eCQM Issue Tracker.

ONC is Hiring!
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) is seeking several Public Health Analysts and Policy Analysts to join their team.

  • Public Health Analysts
    As a public health analyst, you will play an important role in working on key issues around electronic health information exchange and interoperability in the evolving nationwide health information ecosystem. This opportunity is open for status candidates. The deadline to apply is January 21, 2020. Apply (status candidates).
  • Policy Analysts
    As a policy analyst, you will play an important role in policy development regarding electronic health information exchange and interoperability in the evolving nationwide health information ecosystem. This opportunity is open for status candidates. The deadline to apply is January 21, 2020. Apply (status candidates).

National Cancer Institute is Hiring
The National Cancer Institute’s Behavioral Research Program (BRP) has a Program Director (Health Scientist Administrator) position open related to health communication and informatics research. Researchers with expertise in connected health, mHealth, health IT, telehealth, and digital health are welcome to apply for the position, which is further described here. ONC works closely with NCI on the measurement of access and use of online medical records.

ONC Has the Data
Close to 50 original data briefs that provide information about current topics in health IT are available on HealthIT.gov. These reports summarize national-level data analyses, providing readers with easy to understand graphics, key takeaways, and policy discussions. Check out ONC’s Data Briefs.

Security Risk Assessment Tool Update
An updated version of the Security Risk Assessment (SRA) tool is available that includes bug fixes, enhancements, and a security patch. We encourage those running the previous version to upgrade as soon as possible.

Health IT Advisory Committee Task Forces
The Health IT Advisory Committee (HITAC) launched four task forces to review and provide recommendations on ONC’s proposed rule. The task forces include: Information Blocking, Conditions and Maintenance of Certification Requirements, Health IT for the Care Continuum and U.S. Core Data for Interoperability. The task forces are expected to conduct reviews and provide recommendations over the next two months. Follow the Task Forces

Read

From the Health IT Buzz Blog – Learn more about HHS’s Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC). Check out the latest blog posts:

Events

Health IT Advisory Committee Meeting
The next Health IT Advisory Committee Meeting will be held Wednesday, January 15, 2020.

ONC Annual Meeting Registration is Open
What: #ONC2020 Annual Meeting – Connecting Policy and Technology: Brining the EHR to the Patient
When: January 27-28, 2020
Where: JW Marriott; Washington, DC
Register for this event.

Spotlighting Interoperability Proving Ground Programs

The Interoperability Proving Ground (IPG) Spotlight project of the week is CareView: Integration of health information exchange (HIE) data with the Cerner electronic health record (EHR) – The CareView software application integrates selected information from the Indiana Health Information Exchange’s clinical data repository—the Indiana Network for Patient Care (INPC)—with the Cerner EHR system at Indiana University Health (IUH) Methodist. CareView allows clinicians in the emergency department at IUH Methodist to view health information about their patients from outside of the IUH system. CareView is currently implemented for the conditions of chest pain, abdominal pain, arrhythmia, dyspnea, pregnancy, back/flank pain, and weakness/dizziness/headache. CareView is integrated with the Cerner EHR in such a way that most users do not realize they are interacting with an external application.

Learn how your interoperability project can be featured as an IPG Spotlight by visiting the Interoperability Proving Ground (IPG). Once a project is submitted or updated, projects will automatically be added to the feature queue to be randomly selected as a featured project.

ONC Interoperability Pledge

Companies that provide 90 percent of electronic health records used by hospitals nationwide as well as the top five largest health care systems in the country have agreed to implement three core commitments: Consumer Access, No Blocking/Ensuring Transparency, and Standards. The ONC (@ONC_HealthIT) wants vendors to sign a pledge. Is your vendor pledging? Find out who is on the list.