What’s Happening at the ONC – 8-30-19

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Posted By: Roberta Mullin August 30, 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

Interoperability Standards Advisory (ISA) – Open for Review and Comment
The Interoperability Standards Advisory (ISA) annual review and comment period is now open! The ISA is an interactive catalog of standards and implementation specifications supporting interoperability in healthcare, and stakeholder input is crucial to ensure it contains the latest standards/specifications and most accurate industry information. Share your thoughts by Monday, September 23, 2019 at 11:59 pm ET, at which point ONC will begin to finalize the ISA for the 2020 Reference Edition, to be published in December. Learn more about the ISA.

Now Available: 2020 Eligible Hospital eCQM Flows
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has published the 2020 reporting period electronic clinical quality measure (eCQM) flows for eligible hospitals and critical access hospitals (CAHs) to the Electronic Clinical Quality Improvement (eCQI) Resource Center.

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. A “Read Me First” guide to understanding the flows is also available to assist users as they navigate the flows. The guide can be found on the eCQI Resource Center website within the eCQM flows zip file.

Questions regarding the eCQM flows should be directed to the ONC Project Tracking System (Jira) eCQM Issue Tracker.

TEFCA Taskforce Issues Recommendations
In July, the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA) taskforce presented 28 recommendations to the Health IT Advisory Committee (HITAC) for approval. Established by the 21st Century Cures Act, the role of the HITAC is to recommend to the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, policies, standards, implementation specifications, and certification criteria, relating to the implementation of a health information technology infrastructure, nationally and locally, that advances the electronic access, exchange, and use of health information. Learn more and get involved.

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.

New 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

LEAP in Health IT Funding Available
Earlier this month, ONC published a special emphasis notice (SEN) under the Leading Edge Acceleration Projects (LEAP) in Health IT funding opportunity to address standardization of patient information for seamless access, exchange, and use. For more information visit LEAP in Health IT.

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

Patient Matching for PDMPs Symposium
Aneesh Chopra, president of Care Journey, will keynote ONC’s Patient Matching for Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs) Symposium on September 6. This symposium will explore the challenges of patient matching for PDMPs and available standards and technology that can support this need. Attendees will hear from industry innovators and other stakeholders on opportunities for standards, technical, and business process development and alignment to support effective patient matching across the ecosystem. Register for the symposium.

Interoperability Standards Priorities Task Force Meeting
The next Interoperability Standards Priorities Task Force Meeting will be held Tuesday, September 10, 2019.

The FHIR at Scale Taskforce (FAST): Why, What and How?
When: Thursday, September 12, 2019  10:00 – 11:00 am ET
Register for this webinar.

Join ONC and HL7 for a FAST 101 informational webinar to learn about the overall structure, approach of the seven tiger teams, and their work to identify industry-wide FHIR scalability challenges. Attendees will explore possible solutions to these barriers, review the use cases and core capabilities associated with supporting FHIR at scale, and discover future steps and opportunities for collaboration.

ONC Interoperability Forum Twitter Highlights

Save the Date!
ONC 2020 Annual Meeting – January 27-28, 2020

2018 ONC Annual Meeting Presentations are Online Now
Slide presentations from the breakout sessions at the 2018 ONC Annual Meeting are available online. To download the presentations, navigate to the session in the agenda and look for the “Download Slides” link. Additionally, you can view recordings of the mainstage sessions.

Spotlighting Interoperability Proving Ground Programs

The Interoperability Proving Ground (IPG) Spotlight project of the week is Da Vinci Clinical Data Exchange (CDex) Implementation Guide – The Clinical Data exchange (CDex) is part of the larger Da Vinci use case for Health Record exchange (HRex). The scope of the CDex project is to defined combinations of exchange methods (push, pull, subscribe, CDS Hooks, ), specific payloads (Documents, Bundles, and Individual Resources), search criteria, conformance, provenance, and other relevant requirements to support specific exchanges of clinical information between provider and other providers and/or payers.

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.