“Healthcare is stuck in a 1990s time warp. That’s according to Seema Verma, M.P.H., who heads the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).”
“What we have today is a technological Tower of Babel, where systems speak different languages, information is not communicated, records are not interoperable, and patients and providers don’t have access to the information they need to make the best decisions,” Verma told healthcare leaders and health IT developers this afternoon at the ONC Interoperability Forum in Washington, D.C.”
“In recent days and months, CMS has unveiled a flurry of new initiatives and rules, some finalized and others proposed, that are designed to strengthen interoperability.”
The MyHealthEData initiative, the Promoting Interoperability Rule and similar undertakings are expected to ease provider documentation requirements, combating burnout, and open up patient data sharing. The agency has even set out to hire its first chief health informatics officer, who will be charged with leading health-tech innovation.”
“It’s time for the rest of the industry to do its part,” she said. “We are thinking about ways to encourage the market through innovation and investment to advance…” Read the full article here.
Source: CMS Head: We’re Working Toward Interoperability. Are You? – By Jack Murtha, August 6, 2018. Healthcare Analytics News.
