CMS seeks comment on health agency readiness database
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services plans to assess public health agencies' readiness for Meaningful Use reporting requirements and create a database to aid healthcare providers if the agencies are unprepared. The agency published a notice on the database in the May 16 Federal Register.
The reporting of information to public health agencies and registries goes from optional under Stage 1 to mandatory under Stage 2. CMS cited public feedback during the creation of the Stage 2 final rule that noted the burden providers would face to determine whether a public health agency can receive electronic data. That burden "could be nearly eliminated if we were to maintain a database on the readiness of public health agencies and registries." CMS "established that we would create such a database and it would serve as the definitive information source for determining public health agency and registry readiness to receive electronic data associated with the public health Meaningful Use objectives. The information will be made publicly available on the CMS website in order to provide a centralized repository of this information to eligible providers and eliminate there multiple individual inquiries to multiple public health agencies and registries."
CMS is accepting public comment on the proposed data collection until June 16.
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.