Federal action

This week saw lots of health IT action on the federal level, particularly a focus on Meaningful Use (MU) and health information exchange (HIE).

Legislators reintroduced the Flexibility in Health IT Reporting (Flex-IT) Act of 2015, a bipartisan bill granting the nation's healthcare providers additional flexibility in meeting MU requirements through a shortened reporting period in 2015. Numerous professional associations offered their support and praise for the bill.

Meanwhile, officials reframed the numbers for successful Stage 2 attestation when presenting at the monthly federal Health IT Policy Committee meeting. Dawn Heisey-Grove, public health analyst at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, pointed out that not all providers were permitted to attest to Stage 2 in 2014 but that the majority of providers eligible to attest already have done so..

To be eligible, providers must have completed two years of attestation for MU Stage 1. To date, only 56 percent of eligible hospitals and critical access hospitals and 42 percent of eligible professionals meet this threshold, she said.

As of the end of November, 16,455 eligible professionals and 1,681 eligible hospitals have attested for MU Stage 2 for 2014. When taken into consideration that not all providers were able to attest to Stage 2, these data reflect progress made in previous years, she said.

Nearly eight in 10 Stage 2-eligible hospitals have attested to MU Stage 2 as of the end of November. As attestations typically roll in last-minute, "we expect a lot more attestations to come in during December," Heisey-Grove said.

In the wake of headlines about failing state HIEs, three senators want to know what happened to the nearly $600 million doled out to several HIEs between 2010 and 2014.

Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chair Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Sens. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) and Richard Burr (R-N.C.) have asked the Government Accountability Office to review the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT's health data exchange program.

Tennessee's HIE received $11.6 million in federal grants but dissolved in 2012. And, Connecticut's HIE received $4.3 million over four years but closed down last year.

If the health IT headlines so far this month are any indication, I think we're in for an action-packed 2015.

Beth Walsh

Clinical Innovation + Technology editor