ONC Sells Successes of Health IT Adoption to Congress in Annual Report
The ONC released its second annual report on the adoption of health IT this past June. The report provides a snapshot of the nation’s efforts and continuing barriers to health IT adoption. Although EHRs have been lambasted lately by Congress, the report primarily covers the ongoing big “wins” for health IT adoption: increased participation in the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs (“Meaningful Use”) in 2012, increased adoption of EHR technology among physicians and hospitals and increased rRx, and various federal and state HIE and HIT efforts.
For example, CMS is more than happy to report that over half of the nation’s eligible professionals have received payments through Meaningful Use as of April 2013, with about 80% of eligible hospitals receiving incentive payments as well. Among the 50 States, only 8 do not have mechanisms broadly available statewide for directed exchange, whether fully implemented or in pilot phases, of which New Jersey is one of. And 36 states have query-based exchange available either statewide or through at least certain regions.
The report also highlights the variety of programs, pilots and regulatory efforts undertaken by CMS and ONC, among others, and the success these have had since the passage of the HITECH Act. However, ONC acknowledges the barriers that remain for health IT, particularly interoperability, and remains committed to developing flexible, modular standards and policies for the interaction and exchange of information among various types of systems.
To help support interoperability, the State HIE Program recently released a set of online training modules for providers, supporting the roll-out of Meaningful Use Stage 2 set to kickoff this October for eligible hospitals, and January 2014 for eligible providers. The Standards and Interoperability (“S&I”) Framework continues to work with stakeholders in the vendor and provider communities to identify barriers and their solutions to achieving national interoperability. And the public/private partnership through the national eHealth Exchange (formerly the Nationwide Health Information Network or NwHIN) continues as ONC’s “incubator of innovation” in HIE.
Additional efforts highlighted by ONC include:
- improving consumer and provider confidence and trust in health IT and HIE;
- engaging consumers in their ehealth and identifying solutions for consumers to better control and direct the flow of their information through HIE;
- gathering data through various public forums and surveys on privacy and security concerns for safeguarding health information in health IT;
- development of interactive tools for providers to assess mobile device security as well as general security tools for safeguarding electronic PHI and EHRs, and minimizing breaches;
- identifying strategies for improving coordination and integration of behavioral health providers into broader health IT efforts, including launching an interstate Direct behavioral health pilot; and
- identifying stragegies for improving coordination and integration of long-term and post-acute care providers into broader health IT efforts.
For the entire snapshot of the nation’s health IT status, read the full report with its easy-to-read charts and graphs. You may be surprised at how much ONC has been involved with and that has happened in the evolution of health IT and HIE.
