eHI urges greater efforts to achieve widespread interoperability

The Medicare and Medicaid EHR incentive programs and the Office of the National Coordinator on Health IT’s (ONC’s) certification program are insufficient to achieve widespread interoperability and electronic information exchange necessary to achieve true healthcare reform, national multi-stakeholder healthcare organization eHealth Initiative (eHI) told the ONC and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in an April 22 letter.

eHI’s letter came in response to the two agencies’ request for information on advancing interoperability and health information exchange published in the March 7 Federal Register .

“A solution for patient matching, development of a consent framework, and variances in privacy rules across states that inhibit exchange of information from one state to another are several initiatives that require attention to complement the work being evaluated, tested, and disseminated to promote the exchange of information,” according to the letter.

As stated specifically in the 16-page letter, eHi recommended that the agencies:

• Prevent regulatory burden and leverage existing programs and policies
• Apply and advance the work of consensus-based standards organizations
• Support the strategic use of standards to advance interoperability
• Place increased focus on exploring the authorities granted under the ACA and the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation
• Emphasis should be placed on better outcomes and interoperability
• Encourage and incentivize interoperability outside a regulatory framework

The response letter was developed in collaboration with members of the eHI Policy Steering Committee and Connecting Communities Workgroup, according to the organization’s website.