The OneRecord Blog

Meaningful Use Stage 3: Proposed Changes

On Tuesday, April 24th The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced proposed changes to the Meaningful Use program, including a change to the name of the program. For those of you who are lucky enough not to have spent the past week reading all 1,883 pages of the proposed legislation, I’ll go through a very brief overview and explanation of the changes here.

In 2011, CMS established the Medicare and Medicaid Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Programs to encourage providers to “meaningfully use” electronic health record systems. This program tied benchmarks to monetary reimbursements for Medicare and Medicaid providers. The program was fairly successful at getting providers to adopt new technology like Electronic Health Record Systems (EHRs) and promoting data sharing, aka “interoperability” between providers. Over the past 6 years, however, there’s been a big missing piece in the health data continuum: data sharing between providers and patients.

I’m sure more than a few of you have experienced the pain of trying to gather your medical records from your doctors for one reason or another. It is a time-consuming and frustrating process considering that most of the data exists electronically but is often given to patients as a hard copy. For many years, people have been scratching their heads as to why it seemed like healthcare technology was not reaching the hands of the patients.

The proposed legislation suggests a name change from “Meaningful Use” to “Promoting Interoperability”. The goal of the revamped program places a greater emphasis on interoperability and providing patients greater access to their health information. CMS Administrator, Seema Verma, states that CMS seeks “to ensure the healthcare system puts patients first…[the] proposed rule demonstrates our commitment to patient access to high-quality care while removing outdated and redundant regulations on providers.”

“The proposed rule overhauls the meaningful use program to make it work for providers and be more beneficial for patients,” said Verma.

Another big change is the switch to a performance-based scoring methodology. Out of 100 total points, providers need to earn at least 50 points to be considered successful and receive monetary incentives. The biggest indicator that providing patients easier access to their data is a top priority is that the Provider to Patient Exchange objective makes up 40% of the total possible points. Verma states, “we believe that it is important for patients to have control over their own health information, and through this highly weighted objective we are aiming to show our dedication to this effort.”

This kind of data-sharing between the patient and provider could ultimately cut duplicative testing and improve the continuity of care, according to the CMS.

CMS is asking for feedback on the proposal. To skip to the section about Provider to Patient Exchange, scroll all the way down to page 1401. The deadline for submitting comments is June 25, 2018.

Our nation’s founders wanted to establish a country in which no single person or group could hold too much power. As a result, the U.S. Constitution established three main parts called branches of government: legislative, executive, and judicial. Each branch has its own responsibilities. In addition, each branch can check the power of the branches. 

Here’s how each of the three branches operates-and how the three work together to govern our nation.

The Legislative Branch is Congress which is made up of two chambers: The U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives. The people who serve in Congress represent the states and the districts in the states. Congress writes, debates, and passes bills (proposals for new laws). Bills that are passed by Congress and then signed by the president become law.

The executive branch, led by the president, enforces federal laws. The president has the power to sign (pass into law) or veto (reject) bills passed by Congress. The president can also suggest laws for Congress to consider. The president often draws on the advice of the vice president and a group of advisers called the Cabinet. 

Most Cabinet members oversee federal departments such as State, Treasury, Defense, Justice, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, Energy, Education, Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security

For OneRecord, we focus on the Department of Health and Human Services and how the department relates to your health, your history, your rights. The Department of Health & Human Services is led by the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services appointed by the President of the United States with the consent of the United States Senate.  HHS secretary advises the President on healthcare and rights. You can learn more about the internal org chart of HHS on their website here.

The Judicial Branch is the federal court system. It is headed by the U.S. Supreme Court, the highest court in the nation. The Supreme Court’s nine members, called justices, review cases to determine whether laws or actions meet the standards of the Constitution. There are more than 100 federal courts throughout the U.S. that sit under the Supreme court.

Here are three Federal Health Information Laws that you should know.

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)

Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH)

OneRecord joins the CommonWell Health Alliance as the first Consumer-Facing application member for the Alliance

CommonWell welcomes OneRecord as First Consumer-Facing app member

Chief Barketing Officer

Welcome our Newest CommonWell General Members

It is one of my favorite times of year. Football is in full force, the cooler Fall weather is upon us, and some of my favorite people are coming together for the Fall CommonWell Summit and Annual Meeting in Boston this week. Today, we welcome five new members to the Alliance, as we kick off our Summit at the New Member Welcome Meeting. It is hard to believe that this time last year we had 33 members and now we are just shy of 60 members and counting.

Please join me in welcoming our newest members, who represent the diverse spectrum of our health care industry. CommonWell truly is an organization well-positioned to improve the exchange of health data across the broad continuum of care.

DocuTAP serves more than 1,300 urgent care and on-demand primary care clinics. DocuTAP provides urgent care practices with an innovative approach to workflow management. Its flagship product, DocuTAP’s EMR and Practice Management software, fully integrates practice management and electronic medical records capabilities in one complete system.

EZDERM, LLC® is focused on improving the quality of patient healthcare through empowerment of physicians, medical staff and patients with state-of-the-art technology. Founded by a practicing dermatologist who envisioned a physician-driven EHR and PM system that addresses the needs of his dynamic specialty, today EZDERM has over 300 users.

Health Gorilla’s nationwide Clinical Network connects doctors, vendors and patients within a single, secure interface – creating a closed loop of communication and transforming how care is managed. Health Gorilla automates lab results, referrals and test results for physicians, medical facilities and patients, which provides better communication between all parties involved.

OneRecordTM is building a consumer-facing platform that allows users to collect, manage, aggregate and own their and their family’s health records electronically. Using a state-of-the-art interface, OneRecord is building a system on top of healthcare industry technology that can integrate electronic records from a myriad of sources – many automatically.

The Radiological Society of North America (RSNA®) is an international society of radiologists, medical physicists and other medical professionals with 54,000+ members from 136 countries. RSNA hosts the world’s premier radiology forum and publishes Radiology and RadioGraphics. It also develops and offers informatics-based software solutions in support of a universal EHR.

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OneRecord joins the CommonWell Health Alliance as the first Consumer-Facing Application member for the Alliance

Leading the way for Patient Access: OneRecord adopts the Carequality Interoperability Framework

Carequality Interoperability Framework adopted by OneRecord

Five More Leading Healthcare IT Organizations Adopt Carequality Interoperability Framework

McLEAN, VA. (February 25, 2016) – Carequality, an initiative of The Sequoia Project, today announced five new adopters of the Carequality Interoperability Framework. The companies are Coordinated Care Oklahoma, GE Healthcare, Kno2, Netsmart, and OneRecord.

The organizations join athenahealth®, eClinicalWorks, Epic, NextGen Healthcare and Surescripts in contracting to implement the comprehensive Framework.

Carequality is a multi-stakeholder initiative that has brought together public and private sector players from across the healthcare ecosystem to meet the challenge of connecting disparate data sharing networks and platforms. The Carequality community uses a consensus-based process to develop and implement tools that enable seamless connectivity across all participating networks. The Carequality Interoperability Framework consists of legal terms, policy requirements, technical specifications, and governance processes that together make it possible for healthcare to replicate the success other industries have achieved in breaking down barriers between many networks, programs, and platforms.

“The diversity of organizations – from HIE to consumer access, large to small – adopting the Carequality Framework really highlights our vision for an interoperability framework that unites the entire healthcare continuum,” explained Dave Cassel, director of Carequality. “Enabling patients and providers to access health records from the diverse participants in the Carequality ecosystem is a major step forward, not only for the healthcare experience but also for patient empowerment.”

The adoption and timely implementation of the Carequality Interoperability Framework advances the promise of seamless, nationwide interoperability for patients and providers. With a single unified health data sharing agreement built upon Carequality’s ground-breaking Principles of Trust, there is no more need to negotiate one-off legal agreements with individual data sharing partners. Carequality implementers – and their clients – can connect more quickly and easily than ever before.

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The OneRecord Blog

Meaningful Use Stage 3: Proposed Changes

Government 101

OneRecord joins the CommonWell Health Alliance as the first Consumer-Facing Application member for the Alliance

Leading the way for Patient Access: OneRecord adopts the Carequality Interoperability Framework

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