Dive Brief:
- CMS is looking to hire a chief health informatics officer to lead its health IT and interoperability efforts.
- The officer will develop health IT and information management strategy for CMS and determine how health informatics methods and standards are applied to IT and business solutions, according to a job posting. He or she will also serve as a liaison between CMS and industry stakeholders.
- The successful candidate will work in CMS Administrator Seema Verma’s office overseeing an “interoperability tiger team," an agency official told Politico’s Morning eHealth. The position pays up to $164,200.
Dive Insight:
The job posting shows CMS is serious about building on its interoperability pledges from earlier in the year.
During HIMSS18, Verma unveiled an array of initiatives to facilitate interoperability among EHRs and PHRs, including building on the VA’s Blue Button program, which encourages patients to track their health information online. The new 2.0 version will use the same secure cloud infrastructure that supports existing CMS systems, and app developers will need approval before accessing beneficiary data.
The agency will also serve as a convener to foster open-source, standards-based APIs and will require providers to update their systems to ensure data sharing. Information blocking won’t be tolerated, Verma warned hospitals.
Last week, CMS launched the Data Elements Library, a free public database intended to support interoperable exchanges of electronic health information. The tool lets users see specific types of personal health data that long-term and post-acute care facilities are required to collect as part of patient assessments. It also creates a centralized source of health IT standards that support the collection of health information.
Jon White, deputy national coordinator for health IT, tweeted Friday that he had been working on defining the interoperability czar post for several months. “It’s kind of a big deal,” he wrote.
The search closes July 20.