What's Happening in Health IT

In This Issue

If you made it to our Annual Meeting, we hope you enjoyed yourself and learned a lot about the draft Interoperability Roadmap, Strategic Plan and the new funding opportunities, among other things. BTW, you only have a few hours left if you want to comment on the Strategic Plan. If you missed the blog posts about the new grant opportunities, make sure you check them out on the Buzz Blog. In addition we uploaded the slides from the meetingand will have the webcast archives up on the website very soon!

Big Data for Health

Please join us Feb. 12 from 4pm – 6pm EST to hear from ONC and HHS IDEA Lab staff at anInnovation Engagement Bootcamp for health care innovators. The event will illustrate how startups and developers can use open Federal data to create new technology solutions that could help low-income and vulnerable populations achieve better health. Participants include the Administration for Children and Families, Health Resources and Services Administration, Medicaid, Purple Binder, Healthify, ParksRx, and the National Park Services. Sign up now for the free Boot camp which will take place at 1776, 1133 15th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20005.

Nominations Encouraged for the Health IT Policy and Standards Committees

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is looking for a few good advocates! Nominations for the Health IT Policy Committee (#HITPC) are open! GAO is looking for consumer, provider, health plan and quality measurement experts to serve on the committee and nominations will be accepted through February 27, 2015.

ONC is also looking for nominations for the Health IT Standards Committee (#HITSC). If you are interested in becoming a member of the HITSC, you can submit an application usingONC's application database. Applications for HITSC membership will be accepted through Friday, March 6, 2015.

Federal Advisory Committee Schedule Week of Feb. 9 (all times EST)

Speaking of the FACAs, next week is going to be another busy one with nine meetings scheduled, so update your calendar!

Monday
The Health IT Policy Committee's (HITPC) Privacy & Security Workgroup meets at 2pm. Watch for the agenda and meeting materials to be posted prior to the meeting.

Tuesday
The #HITPC meets at 8:30am followed by a joint meeting with #HITSC at 11am. The agendas for both meetings have been posted.

Wednesday
It's going to busy on Wednesday with three meetings, back-to-back. First is the #HITSC Semantic Standards meeting at 10am, followed by the Content Standards Workgroup meeting at noon and then the Transport & Security Standards Workgroup meeting at 3pm.

Thursday
The #HITPC Health IT Strategy & Innovation Workgroup meets at noon. Then at 2:30pm, the#HITSC Architecture, Services and APIs Workgroup meets.

Friday
The #HITSC Implementation, Certification and Testing Workgroup meets at noon.

Value Set Harmonization for CQMs

Last month a task order award was awarded to the National Quality Forum for Value Set Harmonization, an essential component of eCQMs. This 15-month task order is intended to help establish a governance process for the development of a value set, harmonization, and use, as well as to help harmonize a subset of existing value sets. NQF recently sent out a call for nominations for a multi-stakeholder Value Set Committee. The Value Set Committee will help determine the overall approach to the harmonization and approval of value sets, including development of evaluation criteria; evaluating the results of the harmonization process; and provide broad recommendations on how harmonized and approved value sets should be integrated into the measurement endorsement process. Check out the NQF website for more details!

It's Live! The eCQI Resource Center is Here

The Electronic Clinical Quality Improvement (eCQI) Resource Center is live! This web-based tool provides:

Centralized One-Stop-Shop location for electronic quality resources
List of electronic clinical quality measures and their specifications
Links to tools for measure development, testing, and certification

The resource center provides a central repository for eCQI resources to improve user’s experiences by connecting related activities and streamlining the process for obtaining guidance and feedback. Please note that enhancements and improvements to the eCQI Resource Center will be phased in.

Attestation Deadline for Eligible Professionals is Feb. 28

Eligible professionals take note! The deadline to attest to meaningful use for 2014 under the Medicare EHR Incentive Program is February 28, 2015. If you participate in the Medicaid EHR Incentive Program, you should check out the state attestation information.

The CMS Attestation System is open and fully operational, and includes the 2014 Certified EHR Technology (CEHRT) Flexibility Rule options. Medicare eligible professionals can attest any time to 2014 data until 11:59 p.m. ET on February 28, 2015.

Health IT Safety Webinar

On Thursday (Feb. 19) at 1pm, please join us for the third in a series of webinars on health information technology and patient safety, Advancing Health IT Safety and Quality through Interoperability. We will cover a wide range of topics, recent research, and programs that relate to making health IT safer. Hear from John Halamka, M.D., the CIO at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Scott Stuewe, director of the Cerner Network, and Eric Heflin, Healtheway's CTO. Register now!