“In a major speech to healthcare industry leaders early Wednesday morning, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar shared with his audience at the World Health Care Congress, being held at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, D.C., his agency’s broad strategies for transforming the U.S. healthcare system. Azar pointed to what he sees as the absolute necessity of fundamentally transforming the healthcare system to make it less costly, more transparent, more consumer-centric, of higher documented quality, and better connected through data and information.”
“Among the top priorities Secretary Azar cited early on in his speech: accelerating the value-based transformation of the healthcare system; combatting the opioid abuse crisis; and addressing the cost and quality of U.S. healthcare….”
“Azar cited four top goals for HHS as an agency in the immediate future: “maximizing the promise of health IT; improving transparency in price and quality; pioneering bold new models in Medicare and Medicaid; removing artificial regulatory barriers and burdens that impede care coordination…”
“With regard to that, Azar spent some time talking about a major element in the proposed rule for 2019 the draft Fiscal Year 2019 Inpatient Prospective Payment System, which was announced on April 24. As articulated on the HHS website, “CMS’s proposed policy changes include: requiring hospitals to post their standard list of prices on the Internet and in a machine-readable format, rather than just being required to make them available in some form; focusing the Electronic Health Record Incentive Program on promoting interoperability…” Read the full article here.
Source: At the World Health Care Congress, HHS Secretary Alex Azar Maps Out His Agency’s Top Priorities for Industry Leaders – By Mark Hagland, May 2, 2018. Healthcare Informatics.
