Federal Government News

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• "Images, EHRs, and Meaningful Use: A Vision for the Future"-a workshop from ONC with NIBIB.
  Get more information and register here. by Jan. 3, 2011
• AMIA Submits Comments to ONC on PHRs

  AMIA submitted comments in response to the ONC’s request for comments about Personal Health Records (PHRs). ONC asked for specific feedback in several area including Security and Emerging Technologies, Consumer Expectations about Collection and Use of Health Information and Privacy and Security Requirements for Non-Covered Entities. AMIA's comments are online here. Meanwhile, additional information about ONC’s PHR roundtable can be found here.

• PCAST Releases Health IT Report

  The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) has released a report providing recommendations to the President and Federal agencies about how to take better advantage of information technology to increase healthcare quality while reducing costs. Released at an event featuring Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and National Economic Council director Lawrence Summers, the report—Realizing the Full Potential of Health Information Technology to Improve Healthcare for Americans: The Path Forward—notes that healthcare could benefit enormously from greater use of information technology (IT). The White House's news release is available here, while the full report is available here.

• AMIA offers guidance to Privacy & Security Tiger Team

  On Thursday, December 9, 2010, Brad Malin (Assistant Professor of Biomedical Informatics in the School of Medicine and an Assistant Research Professor of Computer Science in the School of Engineering at Vanderbilt University) testified on behalf of AMIA before the HIT Policy Committee's Privacy & Security Tiger Team in a hearing focused on "Patient Linking." The Tiger Team, chaired by the Center for Democracy and Technology's Deven McGraw, is part of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT's efforts to address the requirements of HITECH Act, and the group is working on a range of privacy and security issues. Malin's formal written testimony is available online here, while the testimony of other panelists is available here.

• AMIA Advances Transatlantic Cooperation on Health IT Policy

  Just before AMIA's annual symposium, Nancy Lorenzi, AMIA Board Chair and Professor of Biomedical Informatics at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, convened a meeting of the ARGOS eHealth Consortium, a project funded by the European Commission in which AMIA is a partner. Along with Professor Georges De Moor from the EuroRec Institute for Health Records in Saint-Chamond, France, Lorenzi led this second gathering of ARGOS stakeholders, the only meeting of the project to be held on U.S. soil and a key to obtaining input from U.S. informatics experts. The meeting featured a number of themed breakout sessions focused on developing and promoting common methods for responding to global eHealth challenges in the European Union and in the U.S. Over 70 participants (approximately one third of them from Europe) gathered to advance the project's work in a number of areas, including the virtual physiological human, measurement and socio-economic benefits of EHRs, semantic interoperability, and certification of EHRs. More information about the project, including the meeting agenda and background materials, is available here.

• IOM Committee on Patient Safety and Health IT

  The IOM's Committee on Patient Safety and Health Information Technology will hold its first meeting on Friday, December 14, to hear presentations from the Office of the National Coordinator (IOM) and other invited guests. The IOM will review the available evidence and the experience from the field on how the use of health information technology (HIT) affects the safety of patient care and make recommendations on how public and private actors can maximize the safety of HIT-assisted health care services. The IOM's final report will be both comprehensive and specific in terms of recommended options and opportunities for public and private interventions that may improve the safety of care that incorporates the use EHRs and other forms of HIT. For more information, click here.

• FTC Releases Draft Privacy Report

  The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released a draft privacy report proposing a new framework to balance the privacy interests of consumers with the need for innovation. The report calls for greater online consumer protections and has ramifications for the health IT industry. Among other things, the report suggests implementation of a “Do Not Track” mechanism (e.g., a persistent setting on consumers’ web browsers) so consumers can choose whether to allow the collection of data regarding their online searching and browsing activities. The full report is available here.

• ONC announces funding for state HIE pilots

  The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT recently announced the Health Information Exchange Challenge Program, an effort to encourage breakthrough progress for nationwide health information exchange (HIE) in five particular areas. The awards, which will go to 10 states and total more than $16 million, are intended to support the development of technology and approaches that will be developed in pilot sites and then shared, reused, and leveraged by other states and communities to increase nationwide interoperability. For more information about the program, click here.

• ECRI Institute's Releases a White Paper on Health Technology Hazards

  ECRI Institute (identified by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as a federal Patient Safety Organization) under the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005. ECRI has released its newest annual lis of technology hazards based upon the prevalence and severity of incidents reported to the institute by healthcare facilities nationwide; information found in the institute's medical device problem reporting databases; and the judgment, analysis and expertise of the organization's multidisciplinary staff. For more information about ECRI, click here.

• AMIA Provides Input to AHRQ on Common Formats Revision

  AMIA recently submitted comments in response to a call for comment by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) on a significant revision of a previously-released version of the "Common Formats" for reporting patient safety events. AHRQ coordinates the development of the Common Formats, a set of definitions and reporting formats that allow health care providers to collect and submit standardized information regarding patient safety events to Patient Safety Organizations (PSOs). In conjunction with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), AHRQ developed the latest beta version of this event-specific format to capture information about patient safety events that are related to health information technology (HIT). AMIA's comments focus on the proposed process, in general, as well as the proposed data elements specific to HIT. More information about the Common Formats is available here, while AMIA's comments about the changes are online here.



• AHRQ Releases Updated Registry Handbook

  A new resource is available online from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s (AHRQ) Effective Health Care Program, which has released a handbook called Registries for Evaluating Patient Outcomes: A User’s Guide 2nd Edition. Originally published in 2007, the handbook has been updated to include information about the relationship between registries and EHRs. Download it here.



• GAO Names Members to Patient-Centered Board

  The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) announced the appointment of 19 members to the Board of Governors for the new Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 established PCORI as a non-profit organization to assist patients, clinicians, purchasers, and policy-makers in making informed health decisions by carrying out research projects that provide quality, relevant evidence on how diseases, disorders, and other health conditions that can effectively and appropriately be prevented, diagnosed, treated, monitored, and managed.

  In addition to members appointed, the Director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the Director of the National Institutes of Health, or their designees, are the other two members who will serve on the PCORI Board. The Act also directs the Comptroller General to appoint not more than 15 members to a Methodology Committee of PCORI. A Federal Register notice calling for nominations to this Committee is expected to be issued by Sept. 30. For more information, visit http://www.gao.gov/press/pcori2010sep23.html.

• CDT releases report on building a strong privacy and security policy framework for personal health records (PHRs). In the report, CDT recommends that the government set baseline legal requirements for PHRs and related applications. Click here for more information and a link to the full report (PDF).


• IOM Convenes Workshop Series on Electronic Infrastructure for the Learning Health Care System. The IOM's Roundtable on Value & Science Driven Health Care is convening another series of important workshops -- this one sponsored by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT. The series is seeking to identify and explore strategy options to accelerate the evolution of an electronic infrastructure that will drive continuous improvement in health and health care. Several AMIA members, leaders, and staff (including Ted Shortliffe, Meryl Bloomrosen, Don Detmer, Jim Walker, Chris Chute, Ken Mandl, and Brad Malin) are involved in the first workshop (July 27-28, 2010). Workshop presentations will be compiled into an IOM publication that will be available in summary form by the end of 2010 and in full length in 2011. Additional sessions are planned for September 7-8, 2010, and September 28, 2010.


• Ted Shortliffe speaks at SINI 2010. AMIA’s president and CEO recently joined several AMIA leaders and presented at the 20th Anniversary Summer Institute in Nursing Informatics. His session focused on how the unprecedented current investment in health information technology, reflected in the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, has brought with it major new challenges that demand active ongoing education and advocacy by the informatics policy community. His session was entitled "Dealing with Success: Informatics Policy and Advocacy in the Era of ARRA." More information about the event is available at http://nursing.umaryland.edu/sini/webcast/index.htm.


• July 22: GAO Releases Report on NQF Health Care Quality Measurement Project. The Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008 (MIPPA) directed the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to enter into a 4-year contract with an entity to perform five duties related to health care quality measurement and authorized $40 million from the Medicare Trust Funds for the contract. In January 2009, HHS awarded a contract to the National Quality Forum (NQF). The GAO is required to report on NQF’s work and  its first report was released on July 14, 2010. GAO's second report is due in January 2012.  For the full report see: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d10737.pdf


• July 13: ONC issues final rules on "meaningful use." Click here to read the summary article about the new rules by ONC director David Blumenthal and Marilyn Tavenner.