What's Happening in Health IT

In This Issue

It's not quite over yet, but we've had a busy week already coordinating efforts to make interoperability a reality.

Interoperability Portfolio

This week we posted two new reports that summarize meetings and efforts to gather input on the shared, nationwide interoperability roadmap as a successor to the 10 year vision paper that was posted in June. You can read about the reports in this blog post by Julie Crouse and John Rancourt.

ICYMI, Dr. Karen DeSalvo (@KBDeSalvo) and Erica Galvez blogged about the draft Interoperability Roadmap before the joint meeting of the Health IT Policy Committee and Health IT Standards Committee. Slides from the meeting are also available on HealthIT.gov.

We will continue to encourage a collaborative and transparent process, and will continue to post similar reports, as well as resources related to the roadmap and interoperability on theInteroperability Portfolio page.

Integrating Plans for LTSS and Health Care Delivery through Health IT

The Administration for Community Living (ACL) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology convened a public workshop entitled Putting the Person at the Center: Integrating Plans for Long-Term Services and Supports and Health Care Delivery through Health Information Technology earlier this week. At this meeting, experts discussed developing an integrated, person-centered plan enabled by health information technology (health IT). The plan would include how to improve communication and collaboration among community-based organizations and health-care partners. Learn more about the effort on our website.

Federal Advisory Committee Schedule Week of 20

If you missed the joint Health IT Policy Committee (HITPC) and Health IT Standards Committee (HITSC) meeting Wednesday (or just want to review the details) take a look at the slides and other information on our handy website! There is another busy week on tap with five scheduled meetings on the docket, so check them out!

Tuesday
The HITPC's Health IT Strategy & Innovation Workgroup kicks off the week Tuesday with a meeting at 10am (all times Eastern). Agenda and slides will be posted online when they are ready.

Then, at 2:30pm, the HITPC's Interoperability & HIE Workgroup convenes its latest meeting. Dial-in, agenda and slides will be posted on our FACA website prior to the meeting.

Wednesday
The HITSC's Content Standards Workgroup will meet at 11am and watch for the agenda and more details closer to the meeting time.

The HITSC's Transport & Security Standards Workgroup follows at 3pm and will post more details closer to the meeting time.

Friday
The HITPC's Health IT Implementation, Usability & Safety Workgroup finishes off the week at 1pm. Expect the agenda, etc. to be posted closer to the meeting time!

'Hot Patch' Released for Cypress v2.5.0

After reviewing an ongoing discussion on the Cypress-talk Google group, the Cypress team discovered a bug in the Cypress 2.5.0 release. The bug affects the calculation of expected results in Cypress for measures with stratifications and prevents the validation of QRDA Cat 3 tests for these measures. A fix for the issue was quickly developed, and requires a "hot patch" to the Cypress source code that can be readily applied with a pull from Github. Take a look at the Cypress v2.5.1 patch installation instructions, when you have a moment. Anupdated AMI, VM, and source code for v2.5.1 is available online.

Comment on New Draft Electronic Quality Measures

The following draft electronic Quality Measures are up for public comment on AHRQ's USHIK website:

HIV Screening
HIV Screening for Patients with Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI)
Oral Health Sealant for Children between 6 – 9 years
Oral Health Care Continuity for Children between 2 – 20 years

To access and comment on a draft measure, select the "Draft Measures" tab in USHIK and select the individual measure to view and provide comments. Users must authenticate to UMLS using their (free) UTS account credentials to view the associated value sets and codes. To submit feedback, select "Provide Feedback" on the individual quality measure's page, fill out the form. Alternatively, a user can submit feedback directly at the ONC Jira site in the project "Comments on eCQMs under development". All feedback is sent to the measure developers and stewards, CMS, and ONC for review.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation launches Data for Health initiative

Coming soon to a city near you, the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation (@RWJF) is holding a series of listening sessions with interoperability and health IT aficionados to "Learn What Works." The initiative will take place in five cities and aims to hear from local leaders, residents, and professionals about "why health information is important to them and how they might use it to help people lead healthier lives and improve health in their communities." The Data for Health Initiative will visit Phoenix, Arizona, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Charleston, South Carolina, San Francisco, California and Des Moines, Iowa. Read more in the blog post by Dr. Karen DeSalvo (@KBDeSalvo).