A letter signed by more than 50 organizations, representing plans, providers, patient groups, ACOs (accountable care organizations) and health IT companies, has called on CMS to take more aggressive action to promote interoperability and advance health information exchange. Some of these signed groups include prominent industry names such as Beth Israel Deaconess Care Organization, Blue Shield of California, the New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeC), and Aledade.
Valerie Grey, director of one of the signing organizations of the letter—the New York eHealth Collaborative—says that NYeC supports potentially changing the Conditions of Participation with an incremental step. Grey says that more vendors and providers have been willing to make data available for shared patients, but further progress is necessary.
More broadly, though, Grey points out that not every hospital can afford the EHRs that are enabling some of that interoperability today. However, being that NYeC’s role is to promote and enable information exchange, it is natural for the organization to support efforts that seek to promote information sharing, she says.
(Source: Healthcare Informatics)