What's Happening in Health IT

In This Issue

As we take stock of 2014, we want to thank all of you who have decided to use health IT to improve health, health care and control costs. There is no going back to a paper-based system and our hope is that eHealth can lead the way away from the piece-meal, fragmented health system we all grew up with into an evidence-based, transformational learning health-care system that puts the patient at the center.

2015 ONC Annual Meeting Registration

ONC National Coordinator Dr. Karen DeSalvo (@KBDeSalvo) yesterday announced more details about the 2015 Annual Meeting February 2 and 3 in Washington D.C. —Interoperable Health IT for a Healthy Nation. Registration is now open and we are hoping to see you and your health IT friends here in the nation's capital! The two days of plenaries and breakout sessions will culminate with a panel featuring Dr. DeSalvo and all of her distinguished predecessors. Space is limited, so if you have not yet registered, register nowand keep checking the Annual Meeting page for updates!

New Telehealth Guide

A new Telehealth Guide packed with concrete guidance and resources for implementing telehealth services in rural communities, from startup and financing to sustainability, is now available! This guide aggregates the latest resources at your fingertips about policy considerations (licensing), best practices, toolkits, and suggests ways health care organizations can employ telehealth to improve outcomes and generate revenue The guide focuses on concerns raised during the HHS/USDA Rural Health Financing workshop in Iowa in May 2014. For more information take a look at our Buzz blog post on the latest round of grants for telehealth worth $8.6 million.

Disasters.Data.Gov Launch

Our friends at the White House Office of Science and Technology Programs wanted us to mention the newly minted disasters.data.gov – a public resource to foster collaboration and the continual improvement of disaster-related open data, free tools, and new ways to empower survivors, first responders, and government workers with critical information and resources when they need them most. The White House Innovation for Disaster Response and Recovery Initiative launched earlier this year in response to Hurricane Sandy. We know that health IT can play an important role in disaster planning and preparation and, if you missed it, you can read about some of our work in 2014 and in 2012.

Electronic Clinical Quality Measure (eCQM) Issue Submission Deadline

eCQM implementation issues must be logged into the JIRA tracking system no later thanJanuary 9, 2015 to be considered for inclusion in the 2015 (eligible hospital/eligible professional) Annual Electronic Quality Measure Update. Issues should be submitted to the "CQM Issue Tracker" project. Any issues submitted after the deadline will be held for consideration in the 2016 Annual Update.

Clinical Quality Framework HL7 Balloting

Weigh in on Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (you may know it as FHIR), the Clinical Quality Framework and more! HL7 is accepting ballot comments for the following specs through January 12, 2015: FHIR Profile: Quality; Version 3 Implementation Guide: Clinical Quality Framework (CQF)-Based Health Quality Measure Format (HQMF) and Draft Standard for Trial Use – HL7 Clinical Quality Language (CQL).

Quality Data Model v. 4.1.2

Attention quality data aficionados! QDM 4.1.2 will be released January 13, 2015 and it contains what the QDM gurus say are "non-substantive changes" that "should have no discernable effect on measure development." QDM 4.1.2 will:

Eliminate the anatomical approach site, which addresses lack of use and mapping issues with HQMF 2.0;
Eliminate method attribute from Procedure, Intolerance; and
Clarify spec language on start/stop times on Procedure Orders.