What's Happening in Health IT

In This Issue

• Health IT-Enabled Quality Improvement
• New Prize Challenge
• Public Health Infographic
• Case Studies on Patient Portals
• FACA Flow Chart
• Federal Advisory Committee Schedule
• Cypress Testing Tool - Electronic Clinical Quality Measurement (eCQM) Community Discussion
• CMS Submission Engine Validation Tool

Disrupting the status quo is hard and health IT can help. We want to hear your thoughts about our vision on improving health and care quality. We are also shouting out to developers again with a new Prize Challenge and we posted a cool new infographic explaining how health IT can empower public health efforts, so keep reading! And, finally, welcome to Lana Moriarty, who was officially named the new chief of ONC's Office of Consumer e-Health (aka the Consumerista!)

Health IT-Enabled Quality Improvement

A 19-page vision paper we published Thursday outlines our ten-year vision for health IT enabled quality improvement. This vision document is designed to expand the dialogue among clinicians, consumers, hospitals, public health, technology developers, payers, researchers, policymakers — all health IT and care quality stakeholders — to continue developing shared goals and the roadmap for using interoperable health IT to improve health and health care quality, safety, and outcomes. Please read the paper and the blog post that accompanies it and leave your comments on the Health IT Buzz blog (orInteroperability Roadmap).

New Prize Challenge

One of the coolest jobs at ONC is working up the Innovation Challenges, the latest of which is the Market R&D Pilot Challenge. "The Challenge calls on health innovators to pair with host sites, such as hospitals, clinics, labs or pharmacies to develop a pilot proposal," our Innovation Team writes in the latest blog post. The deadline to submit proposals is March 2, 2015, so read on to learn more about the Challenge and our innovation engagement efforts!

Public Health Infographic

We know you love our Infographics so we published this one that explains how health IT enables Public Health Surveillance and can lead to faster, more complete reporting of outbreaks to public health agencies. Feel free to share it!

Case Studies on Patient Portals

Our most viewed case studies are about providers who implemented patient portals. Learn from other provider experiences as you implement your patient portal!

• Patient Portal Benefits Patient Care and Provider Workflow
• Patient Portal Increases Communication Between Patients and Providers
• Viewing Patients as Partners: Patient Portal Implementation and Adoption

FACA Flow Chart

Wondering how our Federal Advisory Committees do their job? We've got you covered. Check out our nifty new flow chart and stay tuned for upcoming meetings! And, speaking of the FACAs ...

Federal Advisory Committee Schedule Week of Nov. 17

Tuesday Tune in at 1 pm (all times Eastern) to the Health IT Standards Committee's virtual meeting. Check out the agenda and dial-in info.
WednesdayIt's a busy one beginning at 9am with the Health IT Policy Committee #HITPC Interoperability & HIE Workgroup which kicks off at 9 am. Watch for the agenda and more details.

Then, at 12:30pm, the #HITSC Implementation, Certification and Testing Workgroupconvenes. The web conference info and dial-in are on HealthIT.gov.

Finally, at 3pm, the #HITSC Transport & Security Standards Workgroup meets. The agenda and meeting materials will be posted prior to the meeting.
ThursdayThe #HITPC Advanced Health Models and Meaningful Use Workgroup meeting begins at noon. The agenda and more materials will be posted prior to the meeting.

Cypress Testing Tool - Electronic Clinical Quality Measurement (eCQM) Community Discussion

ONC and CMS invite the eCQM community to help define the priority and timing of the next Cypress testing tool release. The Cypress release planned for December was to include support for the most recent Implementation Guides (IGs), both the HL7 QRDA IG Errata for 2014, and the CMS 2015 QRDA Combined IG. ONC and CMS have decided to delay support for the CMS 2015 QRDA Combined IG. The goal is to ensure that certified EHRs produce a QRDA document that will meet CMS submission requirements. ONC and CMS ask for the community's help in determining the best path forward.

Register and join the discussion on November 18, 2014 4-5 pm EST.

CMS Submission Engine Validation Tool

CMS announced the Submission Engine Validation Tool (SEVT) located on the Physician and Other Health Care Professionals Quality Reporting Portal (Portal) is now available for Program Year 2014 testing. The SEVT will accept the following 2014 file formats:

• Registry XML
• Quality Reporting Data Architecture (QRDA) Category I
• QRDA Category III

The next update for SEVT will be in December 2014 to allow for testing of the 2014 QCDR XML.