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Eaten Alive: A Patients’ Perspective on De-Identification of Personal Health Information

By Grace Cordovano, PhD | August 7, 2018

In 2018, the majority of people do not know that their PHI, like their EHR data, prescription data, insurance claims, and genetic data via direct-to-consumer (DTC) tests, are de-identified and sold for research and commercial purposes at massive profits. Medical health data trading is a multi-billion dollar industry. The process of de-identification supplies data that may be aggregated for a variety of analyses, such as basic scientific discoveries, policy & legal reviews, process refinement, pharmaceutical marketing, and other efforts. Data de-identification isn’t new but it is rampant. I’m gravely concerned about the free-for-all that is de-identification. You should be too.

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Preliminary Thoughts on CMS Proposed MIPS IP Rule Changes: A Public Health Perspective

By Noam H. Arzt, Ph.D. | July 31, 2018

Well, here we go again. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has now released a new Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM)...The purpose of this NPRM is to address proposed changes for Year 3 of the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS), the provider (as opposed to hospital) side of the Quality Payment Program. The part that is most relevant to public health is the Medicaid Promoting Interoperability (IP) Program for Eligible Professionals (EP)” (the EHR Incentive Programs have been renamed). A major goal of this NPRM is to synchronize as much as possible the EP program with the hospital-based program that was addressed in a previous NPRM just a few months ago.

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An interoperability update: Do we need more carrots and sticks?

By Irv Lichtenwald | July 24, 2018

Earlier this year, the ONC released the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA), which responds to a mandate included in 2016’s 21st Century Cures Act and lays out principles, terms and conditions on which to base an interoperability framework that healthcare organizations can embrace. “This means patients who have received care from multiple doctors and hospitals should have their medical history electronically accessible on demand by any other treating provider in a network that signed the Common Agreement,” said National Coordinator for Health IT Donald Rucker in a recent blog post. To achieve that goal, TEFCA is divided into parts A, the principles, and B, the terms and conditions, which is also where the rubber meets the road for many who live in the healthcare IT world...

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Upcoming Events

  • ONC's 2nd Interoperability Forum
    August 6, 2018 - August 8, 2018

    The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) is hosting the 2nd Interoperability Forum on August 6th- 8th, 2018 in Washington, DC.  This...

  • Blue Button 2.0 Developer Conference
    August 13, 2018

    The Blue Button 2.0 Developer Conference will bring together developers to learn and share insights on how we can leverage claims data to serve the Medicare...

  • AIRA 2018 National Meeting
    August 14, 2018 - August 16, 2018

    At the American Immunization Registry Association (AIRA) 2018 National Meeting, we will continue to work toward our common goal of supporting and promoting...

  • 2018 Public Health Informatics Conference
    August 19, 2018 - August 23, 2018

    It’s been nearly two years since the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) released its multi-article supplement, “Public Health...

  • Open Source JDBC Access to VistA FileMan Data
    August 21, 2018

    Accessing VistA data using off the shelf tools has historically been hard or expensive to do. With the set of tools YottaDB is developing as an Open Source...

  • FOSS4G 2018
    August 27, 2018 - September 2, 2018

    The annual FOSS4G conference is the largest global gathering focused on open source geospatial software. FOSS4G brings together developers, users, decision-...

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