interoperability

See the following -

Halamka on MU3 Regs: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

On Friday March 20, CMS released the Electronic Health Record Incentive Program-Stage 3 and ONC released the 2015 Edition Health Information Technology (Health IT) Certification Criteria, 2015 Edition Base Electronic Health Record (EHR) Definition, and ONC Health IT Certification Program Modifications. Perhaps the most important statement in the entire 700+ pages is the following from the CMS rule:  "Stage 3 of meaningful use is expected to be the final stage and would incorporate portions of the prior stages into its requirements."

Read More »

Halamka on the JASON Report

On 4/09/2014, AHRQ released the JASON report, facilitated by Mitre. JASON is an independent group of scientists who advise the United States government on matters of science and technology. The intent of the report is to make recommendations for a new healthcare IT architecture to accelerate interoperability. Read More »

Halamka on the Most Important Interoperability Story of 2016

You may have missed or not understood the implications of this press release.  Here's a guest post from Micky Tripathi, the CEO of the Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative that explains everything you need to know: "This summary provides some additional information on the recently announced interoperability agreement between CommonWell and The Sequoia Project (Carequality).  For full disclosure, I am on the Board of Directors of The Sequoia Project, a contractor to CommonWell, and participated in the discussions leading to the agreement.  The description below does not necessarily reflect the views of either of these organizations or any of the named vendors...

Halamka Says We Can and Must Improve Healthcare Management

As a physician and CIO, I’m quick to spot inefficiencies in healthcare workflow.  More importantly, as the care navigator for my family, I have extensive firsthand experience with patient facing processes. My wife’s cancer treatment, my father’s end of life care, and my own recent primary hypertension diagnosis taught me how we can do better. Last week, when my wife received a rejection in coverage letter from Harvard Pilgrim/Caremark, it highlighted the imperative we have to improve care management workflow in the US. Since completing her estrogen positive, progesterone positive, HER2 negative breast cancer treatment in 2012 (chemotherapy, surgery, radiation), she’s been maintained on depot lupron and tamoxifen to suppress estrogen...

Read More »

Halamka Summarizes the CMS Meaningful Use Final Rule

I’ve been asked to summarize the  752 page CMS Meaningful Use  Final Rule...Between the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and the publication of the CMS Final Rule, the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) passed to include sunsetting the Meaningful Use payment adjustment for professionals at the end of 2018.   Also, MACRA requires the establishment of a Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) which would incorporate Meaningful Use.  The comment period will be used in an attempt to align the Meaningful Use program and the MIPS program...Stage 3 is more controversial and I will focus on that.

Read More »

Halamka's Next Steps for the National Healthcare IT agenda

At HIMSS, I listened carefully to payers, providers, patients, developers, and researchers. Below is a distillation of what I heard from thousands of stakeholders. It is not partisan and does not criticize the work of any person in industry, government or academia. It reflects the lessons learned from the past 20 years of healthcare IT implementation and policymaking. Knowing where we are now and where we want to be, here are 10 guiding principles.

Halamka's Reflections on US Health IT Policy Trajectory

I’m in China this week, meeting with government, academia, and industry leaders in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Beijing, Shanghai,  and Suzhou. The twelve hour time difference means that I can work a day in China, followed by a day in Boston. For the next 7 days, I’ll truly be living on both sides of the planet. I recently delivered this policy update about the key developments in healthcare IT policy and sentiment over the past 90 days. I’ve not written a specific summary of the recently released Quality Patient Program proposed rule which provides the detailed regulatory guidance for implementation of MACRA/MIPS, but here’s the excellent 26 page synopsis created by CMS which provides an overview of the 1058 page rule...

Halamka's Report on the Joint HIT Standards and Policy Committee Meeting

All the members of the ONC Federal Advisory Committees met in Washington to review delivery system reform and the Interoperability Roadmap. We began the meeting with a thank you to Jodi Daniel, who will be leaving ONC after 10 years of service. Elizabeth Holland presented a data update on the Meaningful Use program. She noted that 2015 attestation will open Jan 4, 2016-Feb 29, 2016. The Meaningful Use Stage 2 final rule has not yet been released (but rumor suggests it may be released later today). Next, Karen DeSalvo presented a Delivery System Reform Update  setting the context for the kinds of interoperability needed in the future as fee for service is replaced by population-based payment.

Read More »

Halamka: A Time of Great Turmoil in Healthcare IT Policy Making

We are in a time of great turmoil in healthcare IT policy making.   We have the CMS and ONC Notices of Proposed Rulemaking for Meaningful Use Stage 3, both of which need to be radically pared down. We have the Burgess Bill which attempts to fix interoperability with the blunt instrument of legislation. Most importantly we have the 21st Century Cures Act, which few want to publicly criticize. I’m happy to serve as the lightening rod for this discussion, pointing out the assumptions that are unlikely to be helpful and most likely to be hurtful. Read More »

Halamka: Next ONC Chief Faces Small Budgets, Big Challenges

Jennifer Bresnick | EHR Intelligence | October 9, 2013

The next National Coordinator for Health IT has some big shoes to fill, says Beth Israel Deaconess CIO John Halamka, and will face an era of shrinking IT budgets, converging deadlines, and hard choices. [...] Read More »

HANDI Health Apps Looking for Workshop Speakers/Panelists

Just got an email from Jill Riley from HANDI Health calling for speakers and panelists for their upcoming conference on November 4th and 5th in Birmingham, UK. HANDI Health is a non-profit organization focused on the development of open source health IT solutions. They have had a series of very successful conferences and workshops and many senior members of UK's National Health System believe that HANDI has contributed more usable code than what they got from the $19.6 billion failure of their previous Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) effort. Read More »

Happy Birthday, OpenStack! Now Change

Brandon Butler | Network World | July 22, 2013

OpenStack turns three this month and some say the project needs to mature Read More »

Harris Corporation Unveils FusionFX - Advanced Healthcare Integration Platform

Press Release | Harris Corporation, Presence Health | February 24, 2014

Harris Corporation (NYSE:HRS), an international communications and information technology company, launched an advanced integration platform for healthcare providers worldwide during the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference being held February 23-27 in Orlando, Florida. Read More »

Harris Healthcare Solutions Achieves Critical Milestone In Secure Exchange Of Health Information

Press Release | Harris Corporation | October 7, 2013

Harris Corporation (NYSE:HRS), an international communications and information technology company, has successfully deployed its Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) Suite solution enabling the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Department of Defense (DoD) to securely exchange health information. Read More »

Harry Greenspun's 4 Forces Driving Personal mHealth

Tom Sullivan | Government Health IT | June 11, 2013

In a world boasting seemingly futuristic technologies such as Wi-Fi-enabled pill bottles and pills that trigger an e-mail alert upon hitting the stomach, there are still hospitals that have yet to grant patients access to their electronic health records. Read More »