Three things to know about health IT this week

Patient-centered outcomes research is trending this week, along with data transparency and payment adjustment.

The Health IT Policy Committee had its monthly meeting this week and discussed patient-centered outcomes research. “What we are doing wouldn’t have been thought of if Meaningful Use (MU) hadn’t made the progress that it had,” Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) Executive Director Joe Selby, MD, MPH, said. Selby spoke at the meeting to educate the committee on PCORI’s work, such as two projects in the pipeline stemming from the success of Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT's (ONC) MU program. At the end of this year, PCORI will award $68 million in funding for clinical data research networks and patient-powered research networks.

PCORI has a goal of developing infrastructure for rapid, efficient and high volume patient-centered comparative research, he said. “It would be the network of networks, an overarching network.” Specifically, he described a central coordinating center that will bring together data from both the systems-based and patient-centered networks.

Meanwhile, the ONC and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation are partnering to lead a cross-departmental effort to identify strategic opportunities for building a comprehensive, interoperable and sustainable data infrastructure for patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR). ONC has awarded a contract to the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago to assist with this effort.

During this effort NORC will be assembling multiple advisory groups to explore different standards, policies and services required to establish this infrastructure. In addition, ONC will be posting documents from this effort for public input.

Following last month’s release of data identifying varying hospital charges for 100 inpatient procedures, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced the release of open-source health data for researchers and developers. The data include Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services county-level data on Medicare spending and utilization, data on Medicare beneficiaries with chronic conditions and selected hospital outpatient data that includes estimates for average charges for 30 types of hospital outpatient procedures, such as clinic visits, echocardiograms and endoscopies, from hospitals across the country.

This release of federal data doesn't go far enough, according to Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). They are calling for more action to make Medicare claims data fully transparent.

“Medicare is a $500 billion program with billions of dollars going out in error each year,” Grassley said in a release. “The bad actors get bigger and bolder all the time. They stay out of law enforcement’s reach all too often. It’s time to try new things.

Grassley and Wyden plan to reintroduce the Medicare Data Access for Transparency and Accountability Act (Medicare DATA Act), which would require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to issue regulations to make available a searchable Medicare payment database that the public can access at no cost. The bill also clarifies that data on Medicare payments to physicians and suppliers do not fall under a Freedom of Information Act exemption.

It’s not too late to avoid the payment adjustment that will begin next year and impact those who are not meaningful users of EHRs. Robert Anthony, health insurance specialist in the Office of E-Health Standards and Services (OESS), told Clinical Innovation + Technology that eligible providers (EPs) can become meaningful users in 2013. The year 2013 would be their first year and they must allow for a 90-day reporting period within 2013.

“We encourage people to get started now,” Anthony said. “EPs can receive incentive payment if they start the Meaningful Use program in 2014 but it’s small relative to what they could get. If they start in 2013, they could get three years of incentive payments plus avoid payment adjustments. It’s a win-win.”

Will your organization avoid payment adjustments? Please share your experience.
 

Beth Walsh

Clinical Innovation + Technology editor