New This Week on HealthIT.gov

In This Issue

For all the nurses on the listserv, we at ONC want to say "Thanks!" We appreciate what you are trying to do to help your patients and use health IT to improve their health, health care and control costs. Happy National Nurses Week!

Federal Advisory Committee calendar for the week of May 12

The Federal Advisory Committee schedule this week is as follows:

Monday
The #HITPC Privacy and Security Tiger Team meets Monday at 2 am (EDT).
Tuesday
The #HITPC Certification/Adoption Workgroup meets at 9 am (EDT).
Thursday
The #HITSC Consumer Technology Workgroup meets at 1 pm (EDT).

As soon as the committees make their agendas, slides and other materials available, look for them at http://www.healthit.gov/facas/calendar.

Patient-Generated Health Data Facts

The use of patient-generated health data (PGHD) supplements existing clinical data while encouraging shared decision-making between patients and providers. It also offers a more comprehensive picture of ongoing patient health. To those ends, ONC has developed brief guides for providers about using health IT to assess patient experience with care and to incorporate PGHD into medical practices.

Hospital Health IT Adoption Increasing

The results are in! ONC released two new Data Briefs – and a blog post – that explore the health IT landscape among U.S. hospitals. ONC analysis of a 2013 survey of U.S. hospitals administered by the American Hospital Association shows increases in both EHR adoption and health information exchange.

ONC also posted a series of Health IT Quick-Stats to the Health IT Dashboard, which focus on hospital adoption of patient engagement functionalities, and hospital capabilities to meet meaningful use stage 1 and stage 2 objectives. Additional Quick-Stats measure the prevalence of hospitals that routinely electronically notify a patient’s primary care provider upon emergency room entry, and hospital capabilities to electronically queryproviders outside their organization and send and receive secure electronic messages.

Million Hearts Info

Check out the new Million Hearts Infographic which looks at how heart disease affects the U.S. population, the components of the Million Hearts initiative and the 2017 goals. You can also listen to the Million Hearts Podcast where Angie Walker, Office Manager of Dr. Randy Walker Family Practice and Allergy Clinic – located in De Queen, AR – provide an overview of the Million Hearts program and discusses why it’s advantageous for practices to join Million Hearts through a regional extension center.

Blue Button News

Searching for the latest breaking news about Blue Button? We've got you covered with our new page devoted to – Blue Button News!

LTPAC and BH Listening Session

Long-term and post-acute care (LTPAC) and behavioral health (BH) providers play a critical role in care coordination, patient-centered care, and ensuring health information follows a patient wherever they receive care. Health IT is an important tool in achieving these goals. The Certification and Adoption Workgroup of the Health Information Technology Policy Committee has been exploring the health IT needs of LTPAC and BH settings and how those needs could be supported through ONC Voluntary EHR Certification.

The Workgroup has developed a proposed set of certification criteria focused on interoperability, privacy and security, and modularity and is now seeking public comment in two ways. First, we encourage stakeholders to sign up to participate in alistening session on Thursday, May 22^th. There is limited time for this session, please register early. Second, during the week of May 12^th, the full list of the proposed recommendations and an opportunity to provide written comments on those recommendations will be provided.

Busy week for the Buzz Blog

This week we had seven blog posts go up on the Buzz blog – four about #nursesweek and the rest having to do with various health IT-related news.

If you get a chance, please take a minute over the weekend to peruse the latest Health IT news from the week!

Monday
- Health Information Exchange among U.S. Hospitals Continues to Grow, but Significant Work Remains
- Celebrating National Nurses Week 2014
Tuesday
- Nurses Leading the Way
- Rapid Advances in Health IT Adoption and Use in the Safety Net
Wednesday
Addressing Health Disparities thorugh the Lens of Public Health
Thursday
Health IT helps school nurses coordinate care for children
Friday
Reflections for our nation’s nurses

New Quality Reporting Document Architecture Resources

CMS recently posted QRDA Cat-I sample files on the electronic clinical quality measures (eCQM) library page, which help vendors study the base standards of QRDA Cat-I, Health Quality Measures Format (HQMF), and Quality Data Model (QDM) used for the eligible hospital e-specifications posted in the April 2014 Annual Updates. The sample files offer representative data elements for individual eCQMs.

Updated 2014 QRDA Implementation Guides

Also new from CMS are updated 2014 QRDA implementation guides for eligible professionals:

These implementation guides include the data elements for the 2014 eligible professional CQMs in the Physician Quality Reporting System, Comprehensive Primary Care initiative, EHR Incentive Programs, and Pioneer Accountable Care Organization (ACO) Program. The new list of updates includes any changes to the data elements, as well as a rationale for each change.

For more Information

To learn more about 2014 CQMs, visit the Clinical Quality Measures webpage and theeCQM Library webpage.