A closer look at the CMS eHealth initiative

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recently launched its new eHealth initiative, designed to align the various quality and reporting projects facing providers, including ICD-10, Meaningful Use, physician quality reporting and e-prescribing.

Robert Tagalicod, director of the CMS Office of E-Health Standards and Services, spoke with Clinical Innovation + Technology about the initiative.

The eHealth initiative has been an effort over the last 19 months, he said, but it now has a physical presence with a website and communications campaign. Several things happening at CMS brought the effort together. One is the emphasis on enterprise management. “Our philosophy is that we can do things better and coordinate across the CMS realm. There is a data and eHealth component to each of these. Can we coordinate better to be less burdensome to the industry at large?”

Another is the effort to align initiatives with different timeframes in order to be less burdensome on the industry.

Tagalicod said the industry response to the initiative has been very positive but it’s time for him to deliver. One deliverable is an eHealth roadmap that “addresses the coordination issues we cannot handle ourselves. That may require looking at the current regulations and requirements and seeing if we can align them better programmatically.”

The top priorities for the eHealth initiative this year is “looking at all of these data coming from the various program to inform Meaningful Use Stage 3. Stage 2 is really about interoperability and Stage 3 is about outcomes. He and his team also are looking at the alignment of ICD-10, Meaningful Use, quality measurements and payment reform. “They’re all in the mix. We want to ensure that the quality measures that accountable care organizations use are aligned with Meaningful Use and other programs.” Many people have expressed a desire to report once for multiple programs, in the same reporting period and do so by going through just one system. “Those are tangible things people are looking for and we want to begin to deliver on them this year.”    

Tagalicod suggested using the website and listserv as well as making a phone call. “We said we would make ourselves available so reach out when we’re needed. We want to let the industry know that we’re going to reach out to engage folks. Stay tuned. But, it’s a two-way street. We need to hear from stakeholders in order to help.”