What's Happening in Health IT

In This Issue

News is always happening in the world of Health IT and this week is no different. We are excited to see Dr. DeSalvo tapped by Secretary Burwell to be the Acting Assistant Secretary of Health. And saddened to hear that Dr. Reider will be leaving us. But that doesn’t change our work - we are continuing to follow the policy direction that’s been set by Dr. DeSalvo and know that she will remain involved in key initiatives like interoperability and health IT strategic planning. And, with our strong team, we — and you — all know that ONC continues to rock and roll!

Privacy and Security Is A Shared Responsibility

We wanted to remind you that October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month. Our privacy and security team penned this blog post about the shared responsibility necessary to keep personal health information safe and secure. Check out the post to find easy-to-use tools and resources designed specifically for small practices.

Long-term Services and Support Initiative Webinar

ONC and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) invite you to join the Standards & Interoperability Framework's new electronic Long-term Services and Supports (eLTSS) Initiative. This initiative will kick off next week on Nov. 6 from 12:30 – 1:30 pm Eastern.

The eLTSS Initiative will work to identify and harmonize electronic resources that enable the creation, exchange and re-use of interoperable service plans for use by health-care and community-based social service providers, payers and the individuals they serve. These plans can help to improve the coordination of health and social services that support an individual’s mental and physical health.

This new initiative is driven by the requirements of the CMS Testing Experience and Functional Tools (TEFT) in community-based long-term services and supports (CB-LTSS) Planning and Demonstration Grant Program created in the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Learn more about this initiative and register to be a participant now!

HITECH Implementation Update

“Interested in learning about important health IT milestones over the last 3 months, check out this quarterly progress report on the progress toward adoption of electronic health records by physicians, hospitals and other providers. But the report also points to barriers that providers still face. The report is filled with information on Meaningful Use Stage 1 and Stage 2 incentive payments, development of Stage 3 requirements, availability of certified products in the developer market, health information exchange, workforce programs, patient engagement, how health IT can enable delivery system reform and many other topics. This summary is from July to September 2014.

The Business Case for HIE

We posted a new White Paper about "How Early Adopting Hospital Systems View the Business Case for Health Information Exchange." This is part of the Global Evaluation of HITECH which we posted on HealthIT.gov. This study involved structured telephone interviews with senior executives responsible for health information exchange in selected large hospital-based systems. Although the study was small, its findings are consistent with prior research on the means and barriers to electronic health exchange. The study also documents the growing sense—at least among some large provider systems—that electronic information exchange is perceived as a valued asset.

Federal Advisory Committee Schedule Week of Oct. 27

Monday
At 10:30am (all times Eastern) the Health IT Standards Committee's Steering Committeemeets. Watch for the agenda and meeting materials.

Then at 2pm, the Health IT Policy Committee's (HITPC) Privacy and Security Workgroupconvenes. Watch for updates!

Wednesday
The HITPC Interoperability & HIE Workgroup meets at 2pm. The agenda and meeting materials are scheduled to be released prior to the meeting, so check back.

Federal Health Architecture Update

In the October issue of The Pulse, the official e-newsletter of the Federal Health Architecture (FHA) you can read about efforts federal partners are taking to improve care for military beneficiaries while advancing patient outcomes through the use of patient registries.