On April 8, 2016, the HHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) published a request for information (RFI) in the Federal Register (available here), seeking feedback on how to measure the interoperability of certified electronic health record technology (CEHRT). The Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) tasked ONC with creating a metric for evaluating whether CEHRTs are interoperable by July 1, 2016 with input from stakeholders
As discussed in its RFI, ONC specifically requests input on the following points:
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Populations and elements of information that ONC should measure;
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Current data sources and associated metrics to address the MACRA requirements; and
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Other data sources and metrics that HHS should consider to measure interoperability more broadly.
ONC intends to measure interoperability across a variety of settings and populations and believes the scope of the measurement should be limited to Meaningful Users of CEHRT and their exchange partners. This group would include eligible professionals, eligible hospitals, and critical access hospitals that attest to meaningful use of CEHRT under CMS’s Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs. ONC will specifically assess the extent to which CEHRT Meaningful Users are electronically sending, receiving, finding, and integrating information that has been received within CEHRT and how such information is subsequently being used.
ONC will accept public comments until June 3, 2016, and the agency’s news release related to the RFI is available here.
Reporter, Juliet M. McBride, Houston, +1 713 276 7448, jmcbride@kslaw.com.
