Government & Policy

The voluntary recommendations from the industry group, which aim to build consumer trust in companies that handle health and wellness data, are meant to supplement, not supplant, existing legal requirements, says CTA.

Two interoperability projects will get a funding boost from the Leading Edge Acceleration Projects in Health Information Technology, or LEAP in Health IT program, launched by the The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information IT. WHY IT MATTERS The LEAP in Health IT awardees will get address fast emerging and future challenges to advance the development and use of interoperable health IT. The specific focus is twofold. ONC was seeking innovations in the standardization and implementation of scalable FHIR consent resources, and the design, development and demonstration of enhanced patient engagement technologies. The 2019 awardees are San Diego Regional Health Information Exchange and University of Texas at Austin. San Diego Regional HIE, with an eye toward standards, use case and community testing, will develop and make available FHIR Consent Implementation Guide and package new open-source prototypes and content to assist partners in using the FHIR Consent Resource. University of Texas at Austin will develop and test a patient-engagement platform to support an array of mobile apps aimed at underrepresented populations. The focus will be on privacy and security needs, user-centered design approaches and appropriate data sharing across patients, clinicians and researchers. THE LARGER TREND ONC says the LEAP in Health IT initiative is aimed at "well-documented and fast emerging challenges that inhibit the development, use, and/or advancement of well-designed, interoperable health IT. It is expected to further a new generation of health IT development and inform the innovative implementation and refinement of standards, methods, and techniques for overcoming major barriers and challenges as they are identified." These initiatives are the most recent in ONC's ongoing efforts to spur interoperability innovation across healthcare. While another project, CONNECT, recently transitioned from ONC control to the private sector, other efforts continue as the agency pushes forward on data exchange imperatives of the 21st Century Cures Act. ON THE RECORD "These projects will make it easier for our increasingly complex health care system to leverage the latest technological advancements and breakthroughs more quickly and to enable real-time solutions to health care challenges," said National Coordinator for Health IT Dr. Don Rucker, in a statement.   Twitter: @MikeMiliardHITN Email the writer: mike.miliard@himssmedia.com Healthcare IT News is a publication of HIMSS Media.

The funding will support the Centres of Excellence in digital pathology and imaging with AI, adult social care, bioscience projects and more.

Bayfront Health St. Petersburg pays $85,000 to HHS Office for Civil Rights and promises remediation after failing to give an expectant mother timely access to her medical records.

While the agencies will no longer maintain or update the CONNECT wiki, it will continue to exist as an open source project whose code and community resources can be "used, adopted and implemented by any interested organization."

Quest Analytics CEO Ari Tulla compares and contrasts the United States and European healthcare systems – and explains why eliminating data silos is key to better outcomes in each.

The nonprofit interoperability group will lead development, implementation and maintenance of the common agreement aspects of the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement.

Deloitte shows how many providers – and even more payers – are going beyond checking boxes on new regs, understanding that wider data sharing has become a strategic necessity.

Healthcare information is being more widely shared than ever, but how can that be balanced with the need for robust privacy protections? At Health 2.0, two experts will frame the issue.

VHA medical facilities have a cumulative medical document backlog equivalent to more than five miles of stacked paper, with nearly 600,000 electronic files dating back to 2016.