Such certification would ease the burden on providers for meeting and demonstrating adherence with meaningful use requirements, the workgroup contends. In its initial recommendations, the workgroup made the argument for setting HIE requirements that address meaningful use.
A lot of health information exchange happens today, but the vast majority occurs in a small number of transaction silos such as laboratory orders/results and electronic prescribing, according to the recommendations. “The market hasn’t responded as quickly and effectively as needed to have robust health information exchange today. Meaningful use can be strengthened and focused with some level of policy and technical requirements related to health information exchange.”
Created under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the HIT Policy Committee advises the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and other units of the Department of Health and Human Services. Once the committee approves final HIE workgroup recommendations, federal officials will use them for guidance during the development of rules.
Other recommendations of the Information Exchange workgroup include:
* The government should set HIE technology-neutral and architecture-neutral exchange requirements.
* The requirements should focus on meaningful use criteria and be determined once the policy committee has approved a formal definition of meaningful use.
* Certification criteria at a minimum should address such areas as messaging standards; content standards; identity authentication; privacy and honoring patient consents required by law or policy; reporting of key measures to demonstrate compliance; and auditing.
* Providers can choose the mechanism of exchange that best meets their needs as long as the choice meets certification requirements.
* States may impose state-level requirements to satisfy state-level meaningful use definitions. Information exchanges in a state must meet federal requirements to qualify for Medicare meaningful use incentives, but also may need to meet state-level requirements to qualify for Medicaid incentives.
* Certified networks should be authorized to demonstrate meaningful use related to HIE on behalf of their participants. The federal government could accept reports generated from certified EHRs as proof of meaningful use. States may require proof of meaningful exchange through the use of state-qualified networks to qualify for Medicaid incentives.
The Information Exchange Workgroup’s recommendations soon should be available at healthit.hhs.gov. Click on Public-Private Initiatives, then Health IT Policy Committee.
--Joseph Goedert
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