ONC hopes newly certified open source tool will "flourish"
Open source software has been certified as a 2014 edition EHR module, according to a post on the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology’s (ONC) blog.
ONC created popHealth in 2010 as a free electronic tool that could import data, then calculate, display and export electronic clinical quality measures (eCQMs), wrote John Rancourt, public health analyst at the Office of Health Information Exchange.
Developed and certified in partnership with Northwestern University, popHealth “is in some ways a simple piece of software,” Rancourt wrote. "However, it is highly sophisticated and versatile because it is standards driven and it leverages the same quality measure engine as Cypress." Cypress is the same open source engine the ONC uses to certify eCQM functionality in EHRs.
Rancourt mentioned several examples of how popHealth has been successfully used already. Northwestern Medicine leveraged the complete tool as part of its enterprise data warehouse. They refined and tested the open source code and then carried it through certification as an EHR module.
“We recognized early on that leveraging popHealth would not only help us measure and improve quality of care more quickly and accurately, but also provide a sustainable technical foundation for the future,” said Eric Whitley, manager of clinical analytics at Northwestern.
States can employ the tool as part of a strategy for accepting eCQM submissions, required under Meaningful Use Stage 2. Wyoming Medicaid has incorporated popHealth into their EHR incentive program attestation system, Rancourt wrote. The state also plans to use the tool to support a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation award that is transforming practices into patient-centered medical homes.
“We know of HIEs, public health departments, regional extension centers and others that have used the tool or its parts in a variety of other ways to support healthcare quality improvement,” Rancourt wrote.
ONC is transitioning stewardship of the popHealth tool to the open source community because the agency “believes that the tool will best flourish in the future if it is developed and supported by the growing community of robust users.”
Read the complete blog post.
Editor
Editor Beth earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and master’s in health communication. She has worked in hospital, academic and publishing settings over the past 20 years. Beth joined TriMed in 2005, as editor of CMIO and Clinical Innovation + Technology. When not covering all things related to health IT, she spends time with her husband and three children.