In February, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) proposed a new comprehensive set of rules related to the exchange of electronic health information. According to the government at the time, “The rules, issued by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), would increase choice and competition while fostering innovation that promotes patient access to and control over their health information.”
The comment period for ONC’s proposed rule on Interoperability, Information Blocking, and the ONC Health IT Certification Program closed on June 3, 2019. Surescripts supports ONC on its commitment to fulfilling the requirements set forth by the 21st Century Cures Act. In our experience building and operating a nationwide interoperable network over the past 18 years, we learned that even the most efficient and sophisticated network is still only as good as the access it provides to meaningful health information.
We are aligned with ONC in its mission to break down information and technology barriers to improve healthcare. We encourage ONC to consider comments submitted by Surescripts and others in the industry to address additional perspectives to better accomplish the interoperability goals of the nation. This is a complex undertaking that requires the industry to collaborate on setting definitions, building on the technologies available to the market today and fostering innovation. To this end, we are committed to working across the Surescripts Network Alliance to realize true interoperability nationwide.
To learn more about our perspective, please review our recent comment letter to HHS.
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