Healthcare Informatics reported Sept. 19 on the first press conference held by Vindell Washington, the new National Coordinator for Health IT. The articles states:
Washington noted that ONC primarily focuses on three major areas regarding interoperability: using national, federally-recognized standards that come up through the environment; changing the way care is paid for, which involves work the agency is going doing with its partners at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS); and third, working towards cultural changes around the sharing of health data, which involves work with the government’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) as they look to make sure that patients know their rights around information exchange. “These initiatives fit under that [interoperability] effort, and we are focused on them as they are most likely to move forward the information sharing that’s desired in the health ecosystem,” Washington said.
Washington touched further on standards specifically, as healthcare leaders continue to look for a common language to enable interoperability between systems and devices. In the past, ONC has gotten criticized for having regulations that deter marketplace innovation. But Washington pointed to a testimony he gave to the Senate Health Committee, in which he recommended a public/private approach, with the Interoperability Standards Advisory being the best example of that. “If you look at the Standards Advisory that was recently released, it’s organized about the use case,” Washington said. “So this depends on what information is being passed, for what usage it’s being passed, and what the standards should be. You see areas of evolution in the Standards Advisory. As the government moves forward and as those standards mature, you have a move in that direction that underscores the specificity of standards that are necessary for passing information. You draw a line in road but allow enough room for innovation in our sector,” he said.
What is becoming clear as more hospitals and providers are becoming more adept at using EHRs in their care environment, is that leaders are beginning to look to go that extra mile to stand out from their competitors in services, offerings, and even cost savings.
As more data is becoming integrated and exchanged, the value for doing so becomes more evident to caregivers.
“Connecting data to care” is exactly what Corepoint Health customers are successfully doing every day. Realizing the value of data interoperability is accelerated through Corepoint Integration Engine, which is the only integration engine in healthcare that makes connecting systems easy, and even fun.
