Wednesday, November 13, 2013

The November HIT Standards Committee

The November HIT Standards Committee focused on the current status of certification and attestation, readiness of standards for patient generated data, ONC S&I Framework progress, and the overall HITSC workplan.

Jacob Reider, Acting National Coordinator, joined us and offered his perspective on the work ahead as a physician, informatician and marathon runner.   Our goals include meaningful use, as well as many other future looking functions required by many stakeholders in industry, government, and academia.

We reviewed the themes of the meeting which importantly focused on the scope, timing, and resources we need to be successful.  Doing too much, too fast, with limited resources is not going to get us to the finish line.

We started the meeting with a Policy update from Jodi Daniel  including FDASIA, Joint Commission and safety efforts.   An important foundation to that discussion was presentation of the current state of certified technology adoption.

Next, Leslie Kelly Hall presented preliminary high level recommendations from the Consumer Technology Workgroup for the standards required to collect data from patients and devices as well as enable bidirectional care coordination and communication with providers.

Doug Fridsma presented an S&I Framework Update of projects funded by ONC and other government agencies.  I asked the Standards Committee to comment on the scope of work - should we recommend more or less S&I initiatives given available resources?   We recognized that many of these initiatives are funded outside of the Meaningful Use process, so priority setting is up to ONC and its paying customers.

Doug Fridsma also presented the Standards Committee workplan priorities as suggested  by HIT Standards Committee members.     Although we need to separate the "mediums" into those we do and those we don't, there was uniform consensus that a focus on image exchange, quality measurement, referral workflow, record locator services, and care plans makes great sense.

A very productive meeting.

3 comments:

Keith W. Boone said...

So what was your take on the discussion of FHIR and government engagement? Josh, BTW is doing great stuff.

David said...

Thank you John for your leadership. I appreciated your steady drumbeat throughout the meeting regarding the necessity of prioritization and balancing among limited time, resources, and scope. I hope that the "High" priorities and a "parsimonious" selection of Mediums will enable the nation to focus on what is truly most important.

Alex I said...

Some of my clients (Hospitals) are desiring to apply for 2011 Edition (Stage 1) incentives in 2014. According to my ACB/ATL, Hospitals applying for stage 1 attestation in 2014 must use 2014 certified products in order to attest. My confusion is basically what Measures/Thresholds would a Hospital Administrator attest to? Stage 1 or 2? I understand the part where a 2014 Edition certification is required but get lost in the details of what is actually reported? Can you help me clear this up?