Dive Brief:
- With the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) planning to revise its Federal Health Strategic Plan, powerhouse IT trade group HIMSS is hoping to collaborate with ONC on the changes.
- In a letter to HHS, within which ONC resides, HIMSS president H. Stephen Lieber said: "While we champion the vision of coordinated care leading to a positively transformed health system in the US, we want to express our concerns that the road to that goal has become rocky, and offer solutions to address these concerns."
- Changes favored by HIMSS include having CMS adjust the 2015 requirement for meaningful use to one three month quarterly report instead of a full year; continued work on getting all of the countries IT infrastructure to be interoperable; and adjustments to the electronic reporting of clinical quality measures to overcome barriers that providers and vendors struggle with today.
Dive Insight:
While HIMSS and its IT trade group peers have sought to influence the government's process for health IT planning for many years, it would appear that the group is finally getting a hearing. Not only is it asking for help with meaningful use, which is done throughout the program, it's asking CMS to let the group get heavily involved in federal IT planning. If this works out, it will be a landmark in government and commercial health IT cooperation.
It's hard to tell, however, whether HIMSS has simply gotten bolder in its requests for the government has become more open in working with commercial organizations to further its plans. Over the next few months we should see whether ONC can cooperate effectively with HIMSS -- or wants to do so. All that seems certain is that ONC National Coordinator Karen De Salvo is determined to improve interoperability across the US. If nothing else, HIMSS and ONC may find they can work together on that one.