Lawmakers Push for EHR Interoperability

Congressional lawmakers, recognizing the need for the exchange of information among disparate electronic health record systems, have ramped up pressure on HHS and ONC to make interoperability a reality.

In light of current legislative action surrounding Medicare's sustainable growth rate reform, members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee have issued a report emphasizing the link between a successful move to value-based reimbursements and the ability to exchange information between providers.

"Interoperability, or the ability for health technologies to exchange information and use information that has been exchanged, is central to the success of the alternative payment models laid out in this Committee's bipartisan effort to restructure the Medicare physician payment system," states the report. "For this effort to be successful, however, more must be done to bolster interoperability. The Administration, acting through the ONC, must provide appropriate guidance to providers and to industry on its vision for interoperability and work to engage all stakeholders in adoption of those systems."

The report states it is both reasonable and necessary for ONC to adopt and enforce interoperability standards within the next four years: "The Committee believes adopting these standards by 2018 is reasonable and should be the highest priority for ONC in order to enable health care providers to measure, report, track and perform on the quality measures and payment updates required by this legislation."

In the Senate, similar pushes for interoperability were proposed as amendments to the SGR bill itself. Last month, Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.) and Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) proposed an amendment that would require interoperability standards to be in place by 2017 as part of the meaningful use program. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) proposed an amendment that would require HHS to adopt a common interoperability standard to be included in stage 3 of meaningful use.

More Articles on Interoperability:

athenahealth, Merge Healthcare Partner for Data Exchange
CommonWell Names Chicago, Carolinas Launch Areas for Vendor-Backed HIE Effort
The Meaning Behind Meaningful Use

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