This week has been National Health IT Week with many efforts pushed out by ONC and CMS as well. Searching on Twitter with the hashtage #NHITweek will pull up many of the items and discussions, but a few things that are especially noteworthy have come out and highlighted below. Health IT Playbook In one of the most impressive works made by ONC, they released this week the Health IT Playbook. It a comprehensive look at health IT and its impact on healthcare professions. You can

At this point, most people in the technology area have heard of the digital currency called BitCoin, and although full understanding it and how it works is not as common, many do know it has to do with secure cryptographic capabilities. One aspect BitCoin is its use of a public ledger of transactions referred to as a blockchain, and it is this blockchain concept which is getting many groups excited about its potential uses outside of digital currency. There are many in health

Together with the ONC, HL7 issued an open challenge to developers earlier this year to create a better tool for rendering CCDA summary records. This was purposeful and timely because with the 2015 Edition Final Rule ONC doubled down on its focus of displaying the received summary record in an efficient and effective manner for clinicians. They added emphasis on directly displaying specific sections of the summary record, preference for the order of the sections, and the initi

In March of this year, ONC released perhaps is most expansive and program-altering proposed rule since its initial certification ruling called Enhanced Oversight and Accountability. It is currently under OMB review leading to the assumption it will be out near/around October 1st. The proposed rule address three areas. Two are low impact, but it is the third, ONC Direct Review, which will be a game changer. ​ Proposal #1: Establishing ONC-ATLs Summary Currently testing la

Last week, we had highlighted the August issued IPPS/LTCH Final Rule from CMS on our blog. This week we found a good post from Acmeware, a quality reporting and eCQM developer, on the changes CMS was making to eCQM reporting for both the Meaningful Use Inpatient program and Hospital IQR Program. In summary, some of inpatient CQMs have been dropped, and now there are 16 available measures to report on in CY 2017 for the EHR Incentive Program (and just 15 for Hospital IQR). A

Lost amidst the intrigue and questions around the new MIPS and APM programs from CMS is the pressing issue of the very slow rollout of 2015 Edition certified EHRs and how this could impact meeting the deadlines imposed by these new CMS value payment programs. The release of the 2015 Edition criteria is now the third major offering of criteria from the ONC (excluding the 2014 Edition Release 2 which was more of a minor release). Each launch has also coincided with a new progra

While we are still in the quiet period before MIPS or some other key rules come out later this year, a few things were happening with CMS that health IT developers might want to know about. ​ In early August, CMS released a NPRM for Advancing Care Coordination Through Episode Payment Models; Cardiac Rehabilitation Incentive Payment Model; And Changes to the Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement Model (that is a mouthful). This is another of its episodic bundle payment pro