New This Week on HealthIT.gov

                       New This Week on HealthIT.gov

We took the liberty of sending out our weekly roundup a little early this week given that you are probably going to be too busy Friday eating lots of left over fruit salad, potato salad and regular salad – OK and burgers and dogs – from the 4^th (if you have any good Rhubarb Pie recipes, BTW, send them our way!) and don’t forget the importance of keeping your food safe.

In This Issue

• Health IT Safety Plan
• On the move: Patient access to their records
• Secure electronic messaging
• Rural health blog post

Health IT Safety Plan

In case you missed it, we released our Final Health IT and Patient Safety Plan earlier this week in an effort to eliminate medical errors, protect patients and improve quality.

On July 10, health IT safety experts, including our Chief Medical Officer Jacob Reider, will hold a webinar to discuss the plan. If you want to know more about how the plan will be implemented, please RSVP and plan to attend the webinar.

On the move: Patient access to their records

Our queen consumerista, Lygeia Ricciardi (@Lygeia), authored a blog post about the Patient Access Summit II. Held at the White House in June, this was a gathering of a diverse group of stakeholders committed to "turbo charging patient access to medical records." The event also outlined key work streams currently underway to build on movement in this space because when given access, patients “can use their own electronic health information to achieve better health and healthcare.”

Secure electronic messaging

What is secure electronic messaging?  Get all the details of this core measure to help you achieve Meaningful Use Stage 2 from the resources below:

• Secure Electronic Messaging to Support Patient and Family Engagement
• Secure Messaging FAQs - Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and tips related to Secure Messaging

Rural health blog post

ONC's own Rural Health IT Coordinator, Leila Samy (@LeilaSamy) co-authored a blog post with the Department of Agriculture’s Bill Menner, about a pilot project they launched to expand funding for health IT at Iowa Critical Access and rural hospitals.

Building robust health IT infrastructure to better coordinate care, reduce prescribing errors and help reduce duplicative services is important for any hospital or provider, but it is especially crucial for rural hospitals and CAHs, they write, because these providers are connected to every aspect of care in their cities and towns. CAHs and rural hospitals "often own and run the rural health clinics, skilled nursing homes and long-term care facilities in their communities."