Archives
May 19, 2010 Update
Doctors and hospitals that want to exchange patient medical data electronically for treatment purposes may not need additional rules for patients' consent providing certain conditions are met, according to recommendations being considered by a federal advisory committee to the Health and Human Services Department. The Health IT Policy Committee, which advises HHS, reviewed recommendations today from its Privacy and Security Workgroup. The policy committee is advising HHS on implementing the health IT provisions of the economic stimulus law. Under that law, HHS will distribute more than $17 billion to doctors and hospitals who buy and meaningfully use electronic health records systems. HHS is considering requirements for meaningful use for 2013 and beyond, including rules for protecting patient privacy during health data exchange.
http://fcw.com/articles/
HIT Policy Committee: Past Meetings
May 11, 2010 Update
On May 11, CMS announced that it has awarded over $9 million in federal matching funds to help four state Medicaid programs prepare to implement the electronic health record incentive program included in the 2009 federal economic stimulus package. The stimulus package provides a 90% federal match to cover the cost of state planning efforts related to the EHR incentive program.
http://www.ihealthbeat.org/
May 7, 2010 Update
The Health IT Policy Committee endorsed comments on a plan by the Office of the National Coordinator to offer permanent certification of electronic health record systems, including a provision to monitor EHRs after they are purchased to ensure providers are installing the proper technology. The advisory panel okayed this and other features of permanent certification described in a proposed rule published by ONC in March. The ONC is expected to finalize its plan for permanent certification of EHRs sometime before the end of the year.
http://govhealthit.com/
May 4, 2010 Update
Vice President Biden and U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius today announced the selection of 15 communities across the country to serve as pilot communities for eventual wide-scale use of health information technology through the Beacon Community program. The $220 million in Recovery Act awards will not only help achieve meaningful and measurable improvements in health care quality, safety and efficiency in the selected communities, but also help lay the groundwork for an emerging health IT industry that is expected to support tens of thousands of jobs.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/
May 3, 2010 Update
To help guide the Health and Human Services Department in tightening rules for health information privacy, HHS has asked providers, payers and consumers to comment on the benefits and burdens of accounting for the disclosure of protected health information, even if the data is intended for treatment and billing purposes. The HITECH Act called for HHS to strengthen the privacy rule of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). With the changes, providers, plans and their business partners will have to account for disclosures of patient information contained in an electronic health record, even if the data is for healthcare provision and payment.
http://govhealthit.com/newsitem.aspx?nid=73657
April 29, 2010 Update
This week, CMS awarded Medicaid programs in four states (Missouri, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington) and Puerto Rico matching funds for planning activities needed to implement electronic health record incentive programs called for under the 2009 federal stimulus package.
http://www.ihealthbeat.org/articles/
http://www.cms.gov/apps/media/press_releases.asp
April 27, 2010 Update
As called for under the HITECH Act, the Health & Human Services Department plans to release in May a proposed rule that strengthens existing privacy, security and enforcement requirements for organizations that handle patients' health information. The rule also toughens related provisions in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) as the adoption of electronic health records and health information exchange expands the number of organizations that may have access to personal data.
http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/
April 22, 2010 Update
The Health IT Policy Committee endorsed recommendations for the creation of a national database to which healthcare providers can confidentially report patient data errors and unsafe conditions they encounter using electronic health records. Reporting of safety issues would become part of Stage 2 of meaningful use requirements. A patient safety organization will also be established to analyze the reports and will emphasize tracking and sharing information from the database to make healthcare a learning system, according to the Health and Human Services Department advisory panel at its meeting April 21.
http://govhealthit.com/
April 20, 2010 Update
Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy (D-RI) and Congressman Tim Murphy (R-PA) introduced legislation April 15 to extend the incentives for the meaningful use of electronic health records to behavioral health and substance abuse providers. The Health Information Technology Extension for Behavioral Health Services Act of 2010 seeks to include eligibility for Medicaid and Medicare incentive funds for the meaningful use of EHRs to behavioral health, mental health, and substance abuse treatment professionals and facilities that were not previously included as eligible in the HITECH Act, a component of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009.
http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/
April 16, 2010 Update
President Obama signed into law legislation that allows physicians who treat patients in hospital-based outpatient clinics to be eligible for incentive payments under the HITECH Act. By modifying the definition of hospital-based physician, the administration will enable many more physicians to become meaningful users of electronic health records. The law signed April 15 removes the word "outpatient" from the description of the hospital-based "setting (whether inpatient or outpatient)" and replaces it with "inpatient or emergency room setting." The change becomes "effective as if included in the enactment of the HITECH Act."
http://www.govhealthit.com/
April 12, 2010 Update
The Certification Commission for Health IT has named Dr. Karen Bell, a former executive in the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT and an expert in improving health quality, as its chair, effective April 26. She replaces Dr. Mark Leavitt, who has retired after having led CCHIT since its inception in 2004.
http://govhealthit.com/
April 8, 2010 Update
Some regional extension centers (RECs) – federally funded healthcare IT resource centers to help providers adopt IT and qualify for meaningful use – will open nationwide in the next few weeks, according to federal officials. Many of the 32 nationwide RECs that received a first wave of funding ($375 million on Feb. 12) are ready to open their doors in the next week or so, said David Blumenthal, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at an April 6 press conference.
http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/
April 6, 2010 Update
The Department of Health and Human Services announced April 6 awards for more than $267 million to 28 non-profit organizations to establish Health Information Technology Regional Extension Centers. The grants from the $2 billion allotted for healthcare IT under the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and follows 32 HHS for grants issued last February for regional extension centers (RECs). HHS intends for the grants to help grow the emerging health information technology industry and to support tens of thousands of jobs including nursing, pharmacy technicians, IT technicians and trainers, said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/
http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2010pres/04/20100406a.html
April 3, 2010 Update
HHS Awards $144 Million in Recovery Act Funds to Institutions of Higher Education and Research to Address Critical Needs for the Widespread Adoption and Meaningful Use of Health Information Technology. Academia and the Research Community will support health providers by delivering more than 50,000 new health IT professionals to the workforce and addressing current and future barriers to achieving meaningful use of health IT.
http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2010pres/04/20100402a.html
March 29, 2010 Update
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will give a total of $6.6 million in federal matching funds to six states' (Colorado, Mississippi, Nevada, North Carolina, Utah and Wyoming) Medicaid programs for planning activities necessary to implement the EHR incentive program established by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA).
https://www.cms.hhs.gov/apps/media/press_releases.asp
http://www.healthimaging.com/
March 25, 2010 Update
The Drug Enforcement Administration in the Department of Justice has published a long-delayed interim final rule, with a comment period, to permit electronic prescriptions for controlled substances. The rule is available at the Federal Register's public inspection site at federalregister.gov/inspection.aspx, and will be officially published on March 31, effective 60 days later. The DEA will accept public comments during the 60-day interval.
http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/
March 24, 2010 Update
The Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT) will adjust its certification programs for EHRs and reopen applications and testing on April 7, according to its announcement at a teleconference last week. According to CCHIT, the Preliminary ARRA program is designed to demonstrate that a vendor's product is well prepared to be certified once ONC-accredited testing and certification becomes available, but the final criteria and test procedures are not yet available, nor has CCHIT been accredited yet by ONC.
http://www.healthimaging.com/
March 23, 2010 Update
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is taking on an official role in creating testing tools for health-related information technology products to determine whether they meet technical standards and meaningful use criteria under the economic stimulus law and related regulations. On March 17, NIST released the first of four installments of new health IT test method and related software. The agency also has created a new Web site about its testing involvement in electronic health records.
http://gcn.com/articles/
March 21, 2010 Update
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology on March 25 will host a Web seminar to discuss the notice of proposed rulemaking that would establish temporary and permanent programs to certify electronic health records systems. The seminar will focus on provisions of the proposed rule that would enable providers to adopt products that meet the definition of "Certified EHR Technology." The comment period for the temporary certification program ends on April 9; comment on the permanent program ends on May 10.
http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/
March 15, 2010 Update
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius today announced awards to help states facilitate health information exchange and advance health information technology (health IT). Funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, today's awards are part of the $2 billion effort to achieve widespread meaningful use of health IT and provide use of an electronic health record by every citizen by the year 2014. Every state and eligible territory has now been awarded funds under this program.
http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2010pres/03/20100315a.html
March 11, 2010 Update
U.S. Senate-passed legislation that extends programs and tax incentives that create jobs includes language to expand the types of physicians eligible for meaningful use incentive payments under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The Senate on March 10 in a 62-36 vote passed its version of H.R. 4213, which previously cleared the House. ARRA's language--and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' proposed meaningful use rule--exclude hospital-based physicians from receiving incentive payments. But many industry stakeholders believed that congressional intent was to include physicians who primarily work in ambulatory care facilities owned by hospitals.
http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/
March 10, 2010 Update
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology has officially published a proposed rule establishing two certification programs--one temporary and the other permanent--to test and certify electronic health records. Publication on March 9 in the Federal Register starts the clock for a 30-day public comment period for the temporary program ending on April 9 and a 60-day comment period on the permanent program ending on May 10. While the proposed rule describes two certification programs, ONC anticipates issuing separate final rules for each of the programs.
http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/
March 2, 2010 Update
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) today released a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) for the establishment of two certification programs for purposes of testing and certifying health IT—one temporary and one permanent. Certification of health IT will provide "assurance to purchasers and other users that an EHR system, or other relevant technology, offers the necessary technological capability, functionality and security to help them meet the meaningful use criteria established for a given phase," according to ONC. "Providers and patients must also be confident that the electronic health IT products and systems they use are secure, can maintain data confidentially and can work with other systems to share information."
http://www.healthimaging.com/
A Message from Dr. David Blumenthal, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology
Certification NPRM [PDF - 1.14 MB]
February 20, 2010 Update
A Health and Human Services Department advisory panel has stepped up its efforts to identify standards and services that would open up the nationwide health information network to providers who need simple ways to share health data. Providers as well as states need advice on how to set up health information exchange systems as soon as possible, said Dr. David Blumenthal, the national health IT coordinator. His office recently announced financial awards to state organizations to develop health information exchange systems. Under meaningful use requirements for 2011, providers must be able to share patient data electronically with other providers, pharmacies or test labs.
http://govhealthit.com/
February 18, 2010 Update
The Health IT Policy Committee on Feb. 17 recommended that federal officials ease up the meaningful use requirements, allowing providers to defer some of them and still earn bonuses under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The recommendations included allowing qualified providers and hospitals to defer three criteria in the quality domain, one in the care coordination domain and one in the population health domain. The panel also approved recommendations to require that CPOE be done by the authorizing physician or under his or her authority. Recommendations also included that physicians record visit notes in their patient's electronic health records and information on ethnicity and race must be included in quality reports.
http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/
February 16, 2010 Update
Members of a federal health IT advisory group last week proposed to relax the number of measures that would be required for healthcare providers to demonstrate "meaningful use" of electronic health record systems. The Health and Human Service Department's meaningful use workgroup crafted an approach members said strike a "middle ground" between too few and too onerous a set of measures of meaningful use necessary to qualify providers for financial incentives under HHS's health IT adoption plan. The workgroup, which reports to HHS's Health IT Policy Committee, proposed that physicians and hospitals could drop up to six meaningful use measures for 2011.
http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/
February 12, 2010 Update
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis today announced a total of nearly $1 billion in Recovery Act awards to help health care providers advance the adoption and meaningful use of health information technology (IT) and train workers for the health care jobs of the future. The awards will help make health IT available to over 100,000 hospitals and primary care physicians by 2014 and train thousands of people for careers in health care and information technology.
http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2010pres/02/20100212a.html
February 11, 2010 Update
The draft version of a Senate jobs bill contains an amendment that would lift certain restrictions to allow physicians practicing in hospital-owned outpatient clinics to receive subsidies for purchasing electronic health records. Under the "meaningful use" guidelines of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, some hospital-based physicians would not be eligible to receive Medicare and Medicaid incentive payments for adopting EHRs. However, some industry officials believe that lawmakers' original intent was to include physicians who work largely in hospital-owned ambulatory care centers. Therefore, the jobs bill amendment would remove the word "outpatient" from a definition of physicians excluded from the incentive payment program.
http://www.ihealthbeat.org/articles/
February 5, 2010 Update
Dr. David Blumenthal, the national health IT coordinator, said that he wants to "stretch" the healthcare community but not "break" it in setting the conditions under which providers can qualify for financial incentives to use health IT. That's how he described how his office will determine how high to set the bar for physicians and hospitals to become "meaningful users" of electronic health records. Blumenthal spoke at a joint presentation of the Health IT Government Leaders, Health Information Ex change and HIPAA summits Feb. 4. The proposed rule uses an escalator concept, which guides providers toward increasingly sophisticated uses of EHRs with the help of financial incentives and support from health IT technical training centers and state health information exchanges.
http://govhealthit.com/
February 2, 2010 Update
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology in February will make the first set of grant awards available to regional health information technology extension centers under a $598 million program authorized under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. That's according to a notice ONC published on Feb. 2 in the Federal Register. The initial awards are a little behind schedule; National Coordinator David Blumenthal in early December said about 30 grants would be awarded in February with the remainder in March.
http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/
February 1, 2010 Update
President Barack Obama submitted on Monday [Feb. 1] a $3.8 trillion federal budget request to Congress for fiscal year 2011. The president said he plans to make healthcare reform – and healthcare IT in particular – a major part of his long-term plans to put America back on track financially. In keeping with the president's past support of healthcare IT advancement, this year's fiscal budget request includes $110 million to strengthen healthcare IT policy coordination and research activities. Last February, the Administration backed more than $20.6 billion over 10 years to advance healthcare IT adoption in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).
http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/
January 26, 2010 Update
HITSP, an organization that sorted through and worked to harmonize healthcare IT standards and whose work provided an early foundation for "meaningful use," will cease to exist in its current form after this week. John Halamka, MD, the face of the panel since its inception in 2005, said the Health IT Standards Panel would disband on Jan. 31, when its contract expired.
http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/
January 25, 2010 Update
As the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services receives comments on the proposed meaningful use rule, they are posted for public viewing here. An organization that reviews comments from others as it drafts its own may pick up some new ideas, or wish to further emphasize points that CMS already has received. Here's a sample of comments already on the site:
http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/meaningful_use_comments_arra_stimulus-39677-1.html
January 23, 2010 Update
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will grant Alaska, Kentucky, South Carolina and Wisconsin federal matching funds for EHR implementations. The funding is allotted under The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. According to CMS officials, matching state funding for EHR adoption is "another key step to further states' role in developing a robust U.S. health information technology infrastructure." CMS officials said EHRs will improve the quality of healthcare for citizens. The records make it easier for the many providers who may be treating a Medicaid patient to coordinate care.
http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/
January 20, 2010 Update
The Certification Commission for Health Care Information Technology has started the process of updating its 2011 criteria to conform to the interim final rule that establishes standards, implementation specifications and certification criteria for electronic health record. The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology published the rule on Jan. 13, effective on Feb. 12 meaning the criteria are adopted, but with a comment period through March 15 that could result in modifications. ONC in coming months will publish another rule to establish the actual EHR certification process.
http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/
January 15, 2010 Update
LSS Data Systems will be conducting a free webinar titled "Meaningful Use Roadmap: Navigating the New Regulations" on Tuesday, February 2 at 12 p.m. - 12:45 p.m. (CST). LSS customers are encouraged to sign up here:
http://www.lssdata.com/govt/resources.php
January 14, 2010 Update
Agencies of the Department of Health and Human Services on Jan. 13 officially published two rules covering the meaningful use of electronic health records provisions of the HITECH Act within the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Publication of the rules starts the clock for the public comment period, with both rules having a March 15 deadline for comment. The proposed rule from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services defines "meaningful use" of electronic health records to qualify for Medicare and Medicaid incentive payments.
http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/
January 11, 2010 Update
A Health & Human Services Department advisory panel Friday [Jan. 8] explored potential clarifications and tweaks of its proposed meaningful use rules, the set of requirements healthcare providers must meet in order to qualify for thousands of dollars in federal health IT incentive payments. It its first session on Jan. 8 following the release of the proposal, the meaningful use workgroup of HHS’s Health IT Policy Committee signaled it might revisit aspects of the plan, including the number of quality measures it requires and the effect on physicians trying to apply them. The panel will share its recommendations with the Health IT Policy Committee, which will then submit its comments on the proposed rule to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT in March.
http://govhealthit.com/
January 7, 2010 Update
Applications for the $6 million project for higher education institutions that want to develop competency exams for a new healthcare IT workforce are due Jan. 25, and details will be critical to success, said Charles Friedman, deputy national coordinator for healthcare IT. The two-year project is one of the government's HITECH priority grant programs administered by the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Healthcare IT. The deadline for letters of intent to apply is this Friday (Jan. 8), Friedman said.
http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/
January 4, 2010 Update
Last week, CMS released proposed regulations defining the "meaningful use" of electronic health records. In addition, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT released an interim final rule describing the required certification standards for EHR technology. Under the 2009 federal economic stimulus package, health care providers who demonstrate meaningful use of certified EHRs will qualify for incentive payments through Medicaid and Medicare. Officials will offer a 60-day public comment period after both regulations are published in the Federal Register on Jan. 13. The interim final rule on EHR certification is scheduled to take effect 30 days after publication.
http://www.ihealthbeat.org/articles/
