public health measures

See the following -

A Public Health Perspective on the CMS Quality Payment Program

I have seen several pretty good summaries of the recently 0release Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) 2019 Inpatient Prospective Payment System Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to Quality Payment Program (one from AMIA, one from CDC). Here are just a few additional tidbits I picked out of the NPRM. Of course, this document is written like stereo instructions so I welcome any corrections or comments to my interpretation of what’s in the rule. I put page numbers (from final FBO version referenced above which has just been released) where relevant in parenthesis. And I apologize in advance as much of what’s here is cryptic to anyone who has not been exposed to this before and I don’t make much of an attempt to explain the context (or even the acronyms)...

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HLN Submits Comments to the CMS Quality Payment Program

On June 14, 2018 HLN submitted the following comments on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) 2019 Inpatient Prospective Payment System Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to Quality Payment Program based on our earlier comments...We are quite concerned by both the overall direction and the specific recommendations regarding public health objectives and measures in the NRPM. Regarding the changes to the proposed measures, CMS has not provided any explanation for why Syndromic Surveillance reporting was selected as the required measure. Other public health measures (e.g., Immunization reporting, Electronic Laboratory Reporting, Electronic Case Reporting) continue to require incentives for implementation.

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On the Need for a Universal Health Record

The current path of progress of the EHR, with its concentration on “meaningful use,” and an intellectual property regime that does not fully exploit the capacity for innovation by end-users is approaching an evolutionary dead-end. It is time to treat the EHR as what it should be: an integral part of medical care that has limitless potential for maximizing the use of information acquired in the provision of health care, and not an impediment to optimal care and a bugaboo for the physician. Read More »

ONC HTI-1 NPRM Through Public Health Eyes

On April 18, 2023, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) published for comment the Health Data, Technology, and Interoperability: Certification Program Updates, Algorithm Transparency, and Information Sharing (HTI-1) Proposed Rule which proposes new  provisions from the 21st Century Cures Act and makes updates to the ONC Health IT Certification Program (Certification Program). Weighing in at over 500 pages (the pre-release version), this proposed rule provides some refinements to existing ONC programs, corrections to others, and extensions to yet other provisions. ONC provides additional materials about this proposed rule, including fact sheets, blog posts, and records from topical webinars on their website. Note especially the information provided about a joint ONC-CDC sponsored informational webinar which took place on May 24, 2023, and is available for playback on the site.

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