This Week on HealthIT.gov

In This Issue

We have a busy week coming up and in particular a joint ONC/CMS webinar where we’ll be talking about actions to accelerate interoperability and health information exchange. Farzad Mostashari, MD, National Coordinator for Health IT, Patrick Conway, MD, Director and CMS Chief Medical Officer, Center for Clinical Standards and Quality, and Acting Director for the CMS Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, and Cindy Mann, Director, CMS Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services, will discuss our response to the public input we received in our joint Request for Information.

We received a lot of thoughtful input about how HHS can advance interoperability and exchange. We look forward to sharing our overall strategy about how we’ll be taking a comprehensive approach to making HIE a part of all our delivery and payment reform efforts moving forward. The webinar starts bright and early (really bright and early for those on the West Coast) at 8:30 a.m. (EST) on Wednesday, August 7.

Cross Vendor Exchange

ONC, CMS and NIST jointly released an approach to testing interoperability among Stage 2-certified EHR vendors last week. This important collaboration supports the Meaningful Use program and ensures EHR systems are ready to help providers coordinate care when patients transition from one provider to another. We recently posted several documents outlining how providers can use the testing infrastructure and how vendors can participate in the program. We intend to launch a pilot with 5-7 vendors soon, and aim to make it operational before the end of the year. Stay tuned!

Provider information sheet

Curious about how health IT can help clinicians do the things they value? We have an idea, or two. We just posted our latest Information Sheet on HealthIT.gov . Among the details are ways clinicians and other healthcare professionals can, and currently are, using health IT as tool to do what they value most! Check it out when you get a chance.

Beacon Nation learning guides

The Beacon team is pleased to announce the completion of two new Beacon Nation Learning Guides, "Strengthening Care Management with Health Information Technology" and "Capturing High Quality Electronic Health Records Data to Support Performance Improvement." These Learning Guides are two in a series of six that are converting the experiences and lessons learned from the Beacon Communities into actionable information about specific technology-enabled solutions that can be adapted for use by interested communities. The Beacon Nation project, funded by the Hawai‘i Island Beacon Community, promotes innovation in health IT by gathering and disseminating lessons learned from the 17 Beacon Communities.

Attestation data

HIT refresh! The newest data on meaningful use attestation is available on our dashboard. The data is current through June 30. Peruse away!

Health reform

Reminder: health insurance availability for all Americans starts October 1! Help all Americans get the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford by signing-up for health insurance. Help others manage their health by asking healthcare providers about electronic health records for meaningful use. Start the conversation about health IT to learn how electronic health records can improve your care coordination, reduce cost, and improve quality and safety.”

Webinar page

We added a Webinar page in our Newsroom , containing all the previous PowerPoint files from past webinars. It has lots of information that we hope is helpful.

Meaningful Use Resources

We have two new factsheets related to Meaningful Use Stage 1 - Patient Electronic Access and Meaningful Use Stage 2 - Patient Ability To Electronically View, Download & Transmit (VDT) Health Information: