“The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has proposed new rules that will have a profound effect on how healthcare providers share patient data. The Office for the National Coordinator of Health IT and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services are each reviewing industry comments on their proposed rules.”
“HHS clearly intends to transform how patient data is shared among providers and with patients by outlining permissible business practices that will not be considered information blocking and by requiring healthcare providers and their service providers to share data more broadly.”
What exactly is information blocking?
“Information blocking is when a healthcare provider, health information technology developer, health information exchange or health information network (collectively, “actors”) engages in a practice likely to interfere with, prevent or materially discourage the access, exchange or use of electronic health information…”
“The HHS Office of Inspector General will hold health IT developers, health information exchanges and networks, and healthcare providers accountable for both information blocking and false attestations to the government on information blocking. Health IT developers may be subject to penalties of up to $1 million and a ban on their certified products…”
Provisioning of access to EHRs
“Leopard believes the rule is currently written so broadly that it would encompass provisioning of access to EHR system access beyond the clinicians to patients and their designated vendors as well as unaffiliated providers…” Read the full article here.
Source: Could HHS information blocking rule have unintended consequences on data sharing and security? – By Bill Siwicki, September 13, 2019. Healthcare IT News.
