Office of National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services: Principles and Strategy for Accelerating Health Information Exchange

In August 2013, the Office of National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) published these principles and strategy for accelerating health information exchange.  The strategy document was ONC and CMS’ response to a joint Request for Information (RFI) about advancing interoperability and health information exchange they issued in March 2013.

Among the comments received in response to the RFI were recommendations for CMS to require health information exchange in its payment reform initiatives; incentives for electronic health record (EHR) adoption by providers not eligible for HITECH Act incentives, especially long-term, post-acute care, and behavioral health providers; CMS payments for telehealth, e-visits, care coordination, and other new care models that use EHRs; requiring EHR adoption as part of federal certification of health care facilities; additional ONC certification of both health information exchange and personal health records products, additional standardization of data elements required for health information exchange, including structured laboratory results; and alignment of federal and varied state privacy and confidentiality laws. The strategy document does not adopt any of these recommendations.

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