Category Archives: HIT Organizations

Oct 6: A Stimulus for EHR Deployment, Worcester, Mass from New England HIMSS & MHDC

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A Stimulus for EHR Deployment: Oct 6, 2009 Conference
from New England HIMSS and Mass Health Data Consortium
Thirty-five speakers in 20 breakout sessions, 40 vendors and over 300 people will gather at DCU Center in Worcester, Mass on October 6, 2009 to discuss “A Stimulus for EHR Deployment.”
–HealthMart2009 Agenda   Oct 6: 8am to 4pm
–Walk-on registration only. Online registration closed.
(Date corrected from previous post.)

NJ HIMSS Delegation Joins National Health IT Advocacy on Capitol Hill

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NJ HIMSS Delegation Joins National HIT Advocacy on Capitol Hill
Taking a pre-dawn bus to Washington, DC, Wednesday, September 24, 2009 as part of contingent of more than 40 New Jersey HIMSS chapter members with several colleagues from the Delaware Valley chapter, we joined HIMSS members from across the country visiting senators, Congressmen and their staffs.

Requesting three major initiatives (known as “Asks” on the Hill), New Jersey members visited personally with Congressmen Leonard Lance and Steve Rothman in their respective offices, and Lance’s legislative assistant Jeffrey Last, as well as a member of Congressman’s Frank Pallone’s staff and aides in other Congressional offices. On the Senate side, NJ delegations of more than 20 met with Senator Robert Menendez’s legislative correspondent Chasseny Lewis and Senator Frank Lautenberg’s legislative assistant Apryl Clark.

The “Asks”
Per quidelines supplied by HIMSS Legislative Affairs leaders–
“1. Ensure that the Executive Branch meets the timelines, requirements, and the needs of your Congressional constituents for the health information technology (IT) components included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA).

2.  Require the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to conduct a study concerning the necessary funding needed to achieve the nationwide exchange of health information among health information exchanges (HIEs).

3.  Apply Congressional oversight authority to ensure that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) establishes a final regulation for the e-prescribing of controlled substances that would not impede the overall benefits of e-prescribing.

To view all HIMSS position statements and legislative analyses, please visit the HIMSS website at: http://www.himss.org/advocacy ”

The Offers
Led by NJ HIMSS chapter president Richard Temple, CIO of AristaCare, members offered  their personal and chapter services
1. to answer future questions about HITECH and healthcare IT  issues and challenges, as well as

2. to offer forums for NJ members of Congress and their staffs to learn more about the IT issues facing hospitals, physicians, patients, healthcare and IT professionals.

One Congressional staffer was surprised and pleased to hear we were offering help and not just asking.

For New Jersey the Advocacy Day event was organized by Advocacy chair Indranil (Neal) Ganguly, CIO of CentraState and Events chair and bus chaperone Tony Ferrante, Director, Business Development for Computer Design and Integration. And no one was left behind.

The HITECH Process
This writer, along with colleagues from NJ HIMSS note their appreciation for the passage of the HITECH  Act with generally high expectations  for its impact on patients and healthcare. The complex process led by National Coordinator for Health IT David Blumenthal, his fellow ONC staffers and advisors, and the public and private members of the HIT Policy and Standard Committees, along with HITSP volunteers, has demonstrated to this writer remarkable momentum, transparency, and agility including responsiveness to a great deal of public feedback. CCHIT has also moved rapidly to adjust to the new certification environment.

One observes a powerful force unleashed in 2009 after a decade or two of these healthcare leaders and experts  working on their own and with each other to develop better ways to support patient care with healthcare IT, and building on a underfunded but critical structure developed under the previous administration. New Jersey and all other states and territories are increasingly focusing on in-state and local activities (Health Information Exchanges and Regional Extension Centers) under the guidance of ONC to move this process to the individual healthcare provider and patient.

The Learning
When the NJ bus arrived mid-morning Sept 23, 2009, to HIMSS 8th Annual Policy Summit at the Renaissance Washington, DC Hotel, we were fortunate to hear a very adept policy update from a member of the HIT Policy Committee, Gayle Harrell, Member of the Florida House of Representatives (2000-08). We look forward to the online posting of her presentation.

Webinar: Understanding State and National Health Information Technology Policy

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Understanding State and National HIT Policy Webinar
Tuesday, September 22, 2009     11:00 AM — 12:30 PM ET
“In honor of National HIT Week, the eHealth Initiative, in collaboration with the Institute for e-Health Policy – HIMSS Foundation, is hosting a national policy webinar that will seek to provide high-level insights from some of the biggest names in HIT policy.”  Participants will include Rachel Block, Deputy Commissioner for HIT, New York State Department of Health; John Glaser, PhD, Senior Special Advisor, Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology: and Ree Sailors, Program Director, Health Division, National Governors Association. Click here for free registration.

HIT September 2009 Calendar

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September 2009 Health Information Technology Calendar
National Dates
3: CCHIT Town Call on New 2011 Certification:
               Presentation Materials Available
8: ONC: HIT Extension Program: Regional Centers:
              Prelimimary Application Due
10: HITSP Webinar on Medication Management Real World Sites
11: ONC: State Health Information Exchange Program:
               Letter of Intent Due
15: HIT Standards Committee Meeting
18: HIT Policy Commitee Meeting
21-25: National Health IT Week: One Voice, One Vision:
               Transforming Health and Care, Washington, DC.
22-23: HIMSS 8th Annual Policy Summit, Washington, DC.
29: ONC HIT Extension Program: Regional Centers:
               Preliminary Approval

New Jersey Dates
3: NJ HIT Commission Meeting
10: NJ Senate Legislative Oversight Committee Hearing:
Electronic Medical Records: 10 am Meeting – Committee Room 4, 1st Floor, State House Annex, Trenton, NJ: The committee will meet to take testimony from invited guests on the issue of electronic medical records.  The committee will also hear from the Department of Health and Senior Services and the Department of Banking and Insurance on the implementation of the NJ Health Information Technology Act.

11: State of NJ HIE Project Grants: Guidance Conference Call 
               10:30am to noon. Call-in details to come.
23: HIMSS National Advocacy Day: NJ Chapter goes to Washington, DC.
25: State of NJ HIE Project Grant: Applications Due

Additional Dates to Come.

Halamka’s HITSP eTown Hall II

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Halamka describes HITSP’s efforts to address ARRA/HITECH
As part of a Health IT double-header  on August 27, 2009, John Halamka, MD, MS, HITSP Chair, held an digital Town Hall meeting about HITSP’s work in relation to the law, ARRA, and the process being conducted by Office of National Coordinator (ONC), and the HIT Standards and Policy Committees.

HITSP is the Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel, a public/private collaboration setup to help achieve ubiquitous interoperability between healthcare software applications throughout a local to national health information network. Within an excellent overview of the process going on at the national level, Halamka’s slide show for the Town Hall describes the new HITSP Tiger Team’s development of  EHR-Centric Interoperability Specifications (IS 107) to meet ARRA’s requirements.
For slide set referenced above and documents referenced below, see Halamka’s Life as a Healthcare CIO blog.
Archived Webinar: Go to the August section of HITSP’s 2009 Archived Webcasts page and click on the Audio (wmv) file, which is actually complete with slides and audio. 

HIT Policy and Standards Committee Recommendations/Matrixes
In addition to slide set for the Town Hall, Halamka posted each matrix approved last week by the HIT Standards Committee  from its three workgroups on Clinical Quality, Clinical Operations, and Security and Privacy. He also posted documents approved the prior week by the HIT Policy Committee: Meaningful Use Matrix and HIE priorities. Halamka, of Harvard Medical School, serves as vice chair of the HIT Standards Committee, along with HIT Standards Committee chair Jonathan Perlin of  Hospital Corporation of America.

(The other half of the double-header, a Webcast by ONC about the grant application process for Regional Extension Centers, was going on at the same time as the Town Hall, with a reported 1,000 people watching/listening. Both sessions will be archived.)

Next Steps for the HIT Standards Committee

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Three Workgroups Prepare for August 20, 2009 HIT Standards Meeting
John Halamka, on his blog Life as a Healthcare CIO, reported July 29, 2009, on the progress of three working groups since the July 21, 2009 meeting of HIT Standards Committee as they prepare for August 20, 2009 meeting: Privacy and Security, Clinical Quality, and Clinical Operations. Groups are fine-tuning standards, partially in response to comments. On Security and Privacy, it appears that all health information transactions between organizations will need to be encrypted and that both SOAP and REST approaches to data exchange will be used depending on the specific transactions. On Clinical Quality, discussion is how to deal with removing certain patients from a specified field (exclusionary data) in light of inability of current EHR systems to handle. Clinical Operations is dealing with exchange of information where different vocabularies are being used.

HHS Certification: Recommendation Opens Door to Add’l Certification Agenices

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CCHIT plus Multiple EHR Certifying Entities Proposed 
As reported by Joseph Goedert of HealthData Management  on July 16, 2009, “The workgroup recommends that multiple organizations be allowed to perform ‘HHS Certification’ testing and provide certification. HHS Certification means a certifying process that is limited to the minimum set of criteria necessary to meet functional requirements of ARRA and achieve the law’s meaningful use objectives.”

Five Recommendations of Certification/Adoption Workgroup plus 2 key points related to Meaningful Use and 5 to short-term transition   Full slide set (ppt)
1. Focus Certification on Meaningful Use
             – The National Coordinator should determine the criteria for HHS Certification, which should be limited to the minimum set of criteria that are necessary to: (a) meet the functional requirements of the statute, and  (b) achieve the Meaningful Use Objectives.
              – The focus on Meaningful Use should reduce the barriers currently faced by vendors that focus on specialists.

2. Leverage Certification process to improve progress on Security, Privacy, and Interoperability

3. Improve objectivity and transparency of the certification process

4. Expand Certification to include a range of software sources: Open source, self-developed, etc.

5. Develop a Short-Term Transition plan
      — ONC should define missing criteria to address Meaningful Use objectives, e.g., public health.
      — ONC should revise the existing criteria to meet Meaningful Use objectives, e.g., e-prescribing.
      — Subject to completing a special MU Gap Certification, existing certified products should be deemed certified for 2011.
      — New products, not currently certified, should be certified against the revised criteria and gaps.
      — Until the new HHS Certification process is established, with ONC approval, CCHIT should continue to perform certifications against ONC defined criteria.

Slides:  Certification/Adoption Workgroup Recommendations (ppt)

Roundup of Comments About ‘Meaningful Use’

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‘Meaningful use’ reviews show qualification concern
Joseph Conn, HITS staff writer, writes a roundup of comments submitted by a range of organizations on July 2, 2009: Consumer Partnership for e-Health (includes 17 organizations such as AARP, Consumers Union, National Partnership for Women & Families), Federation of American Hospitals,American Hospital Association, 82 medical societies including American Medical Association, Association of Medical Directors of Information Systems, and American Health Information Management Association.

CHIMES adds it Comments on ‘Meaningful Use’
The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) President and CEO Rich Correll said in comments dated June 26, 2009, ”given the diversity of (hospital) environments … flexibility in complying with meaningful use is essential to ensure that as many patients as possible reap the benefits of safer, more effective health IT-enabled care.” CHIME  is made up of 1,300 CIOs.
Press release summary.
Full letter and recommendations. (pdf)

Action and Implementation Manual (AIM) from ONC’s HISPC

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AIM Manual pdf from HISPC

Action and Education Manual

Action and Education Manual

Heading and the front page of Action and Implementation Manual link to pdf of the 45-page how-to guide produced from the 7 Collaborations among 42 states and territories referred to in the June 9, 2009 posting below.
http://healthit.hhs.gov/html/hispc/AIMReport.pdf